“When we know that a French household wastes around 800 euros of food per year, it seems to me necessary to mobilize. To do this, Julie Andrieu not only agreed to serve as an ambassador for the HelloFresh campaign, whose solution to limit food waste consists in offering cooking boxes on subscription with ingredients delivered to the nearest gram.
“800 euros is the equivalent of ten weeks of shopping at 80 euros”, summarizes the brand in its campaign. The idea of HelloFresh and its ambassador is to deal with the three main causes of this mess: expiry dates that have passed, excessive quantities cooked and the appearance of certain foods.
Buy less to buy fresh
“At the supermarket, I will first buy the product with the furthest expiry date,” explains Julie Andrieu. But I will also take advantage of promotions on dates that are close and that I know I can consume the product quickly. The whole thing is to avoid having to throw away the food yourself. But also to prevent the supermarket from doing so.
“I must say that I also free myself quite a bit from these expiry dates,” she confides. Firstly because I traveled a lot, I ate in the street, all sorts of things and that’s not necessarily where I got sick… Obviously, there was a moment when the milk went sour , but for food safety reasons, the dates are often very early. »
Cook in smaller quantities
“The quantities cooked are a bit my fault, recognizes Julie Andrieu. I cook a lot. Too much, I don’t know. In any case, I never throw away, but I freeze a lot, both fresh and cooked products. And then, I’m lucky to have a vegetable garden and in this case, you have to keep it. Otherwise, I recycle my leftovers into pasta, quiches, pies. I redo a dish with another: the pot-au-feu which becomes a beef stew which then becomes something else. It’s really the cuisine of grandmothers, the one I love and value. It’s my culinary language. »
Having fun with ugly vegetables
What attitude to adopt when faced with an ugly vegetable or a damaged fruit? “This apple with a little fart, we all tend to be a little influenced by that, recognizes Julie Andrieu… I try to free myself from it, as I try to convince children that it is nothing at all, just remove the slightly blackened part of the banana with a small vegetable peeler and it will be very good. But I also explain to them that if everyone does that, there will be a lot of waste…”
Julie Andrieu is pleased that at school, children are increasingly aware of these issues. “Afterwards, it’s true that it’s easier to slice a potato that’s regular than a potato that’s all warped. Same for a carrot. To grate, it will be easier when obviously it is conical, classic. This does not prevent you from behind, perhaps instead of peeling it with a vegetable peeler, rubbing it with a small sandpaper sponge… It’s a matter of common sense. »
Produce less waste or recycle it
Ademe noted in 2020 that nearly 10 million tonnes of edible food were wasted each year, i.e. the equivalent of 150 kg/inhabitant/year. And that in household and similar waste, there was the equivalent of 20 kg/inhabitant/year of food waste, including 7 kg of food products still packaged. “It’s a food production that has an economic cost and a cost for the planet too, underlines the cook. But what do we do with this waste? We burn them. So it’s still an impact on the environment. We must be aware of this and try to turn the tide. »
Julie Andrieu believes that it is the responsibility of those who have a mastery of cooking and of how to accommodate food to serve as relay vis-à-vis consumers on a daily basis, in order to explain that this is not is not so complicated not to throw, that it can become a reflex, even a game, and that it is even quite satisfying to say to yourself “Hey, I managed to find a recipe, I didn’t spend any money. money, I didn’t throw away and waste food unnecessarily. »
Chips of peels and broths
“There is an example that I often quote and which is quite telling: in Canada, they make chips with potato peels. We try to make a slightly generous peel so that there is still a little bit of flesh. And then we make crisps, which I make now and which are absolutely delicious. When I make a roast chicken, I never throw away the carcass. I will always make a broth that can then transcend a pasta dish or a risotto. Or I make a sauce, with chicken stock rather than water. For vegetables, the same. The tops are almost all eaten, the pods of peas or beans, you can make soups. Me, I peel the vegetables very little thanks to my vegetable garden, so I can harvest them young. But even on a squash which, incidentally, has a very thick skin, when it’s organic, there’s absolutely no need to peel it. The skin is consumed! But people don’t necessarily know. »
The HelloFresh box solution
Before accepting HelloFresh’s proposal to become their ambassador, Julie Andrieu asked them to be able to taste their products. “They delivered a lot of boxes to me,” she says. I tested them and I found that frankly good. I think if it hadn’t been good, I wouldn’t have done it. I found it simple to make and then it worked, which is not always the case when you follow the recipe of a magazine or a book to the letter. There, it worked and I found that the approach of these precalibrated ingredients was very interesting. They have an economy of scale that allows them to buy in bulk in order to offer boxes at affordable prices while having the right quantity while letting people cook for themselves. “And the host to recall her primary vocation: “to get people to cook, even if it is only a small culinary gesture, but in any case try not to buy everything prepared or industrialized”.