If you’ve been following the blog over the last month or so, you’ll have seen that I’ve been taking part in the Haier Fresher Diaries Challenge. The idea was to take stock of how much food I’ve been wasting, come up with a plan to tackle it (thanks to the people at Haier and Love Food Hate Waste) and then of course implement it.

I was shocked by how much food I was wasting on a weekly basis, simply by not storing them correctly most of the time! The lovely people at Haier are helping with my mission to cut down on waste and one major way to do this is to get a fridge freezer which can really deal with your food and help it to stay fresher for longer.

I was sent the Haier Cube Series HTF-610DM7 to review and over the last week I’ve had great fun playing with it, and all its exclusive Fresher Techs which are designed with freshness in mind!

I stole this picture from Haier as I can’t seem to get an image without my reflection in it. That’s how shiny it is!

The cube has a huge capacity of 610 litres, which gives you plenty of room for all your food – no matter how big your family.

Just look at the size of this fridge – enormous. Note also the incredible day like lighting – so easy to see everything. Yes, I need to go for a shop to fill it all up now!

I’ve again stolen one of Haier’s images as it really shows the huge capacity that this fridge freezer has!

There’s a fridge compartment, a freezer compartment and a compartment called the ‘Switch Zone’ which can be used as either a fridge (+5 degrees) or keep it as a freezer (-20 degrees), dependent on your needs. It’s so flexible! I think this will become especially useful at Christmas when I’m buying lots of party food and need a place to store it all.  You can easily control the temperature on the outside of the fridge door. The separate compartments also mean you can open them individually, reducing the amount of electricity loss by up to 60%, making sure you save money and save your food from perishing unnecessarily!

The freezer compartments – You can see the ice maker at the top on the left. The right section is the ‘MyZone’ which means it can be changed from freezer to fridge or vice versa easily enough.

There are two compartments in the fridge – the humidity zone and the dry zone, which work with different ingredients to keep them at their freshest. Fruit and vegetables thrive in the humidity zone as it keeps them at their optimum humidity and moisture levels (90%) by using a unique plant fibre membrane – you can go away for days knowing when you return it will still be ripe and ready to eat. Cheeses and meats should be stored in the dry zone which reduces humidity to below 45% – meaning things will definitely last longer by between 4 and 7 days which makes a massive difference!

The whole fridge is also equipped with Haier’s anti-bacterial technology. This is done through a UV light which eliminates bacteria throughout the fridge. What I noticed immediately when starting up the fridge was the fantastic lighting. The fridge has a daylight touch to it, so that it feels really bright and you can easily see what’s hidden in the depths. No more yoghurts discovered weeks after their sell by date in the corner.

And perhaps, most importantly when you have an open kitchen/diner like we do the fridge is low noise – so low noise in fact, that we can’t hear anything. It also has an A++ rating, which means it’s incredibly energy efficient

Want to find out a bit more? Watch the video below.

There are so many useful features in this fridge freezer which will help me with my food waste challenge and make it so much easier. Take a look back over my old posts to see some useful tips for preventing food waste.

This was a sponsored post by Haier UK. For more information, please visit: www.haier.com/uk or visit their facebook page @HaierUK.

As you’ll know from my previous posts, I was lucky enough to be chosen to participate in the Haier fresher food challenge. I reported back on our food waste after a week and was disappointed at the amount of food I had to throw away, simply because I’d forgotten about them or not looked after them properly. (Have a look back through my posts to see the previous videos)

The lovely people at Haier, no.1 worldwide in household appliances, took a look at my videos and came back with some handy hints and tips as to how to prevent this kind of waste in the future. They linked with the people at Love Food, Hate Waste and have created a video which looks at how I can make my food last longer and avoid any wastage. See below for their advice.

What fantastic advice! I was really disappointed by the amount of waste I had in the fridge when I reviewed it (you’ll see I had to throw away chicken, yoghurts and all sorts!). I saved it all up to be thrown away in one go, and usually don’t do that…and it shows the quantities of waste that is thrown away.

Thanks to Haier I now have some great ideas for making my food last longer, and taste fresher for longer too. I’ll definitely be using the tip to add some kitchen towel to a bag of salad to give the leaves a better shelf life.

I’ll also be adding my citrus fruit, apples and pears into the crisper compartment of my fridge, as Helen (the lovely lady in the video) explains that they will last much longer this way. This seems so obvious, but it has been a habit of mine to stick this kind of fruit into the fruit bowl, so this is a little easy change which can make a huge difference!

Something as simple as separating chicken breasts and freezing half will also be a regular occurrence from now on as will freezing yoghurts before they go off, and then enjoying them as an ice cream alternative. Genius!

All of these tips are so easy to implement, that I’d be stupid not to! Trust me, there won’t be as much food waste in this household going forwards.

The added benefit to all of this, as well as the obvious benefit to the environment is that I would save around £547 a year by sticking to the above tips and tricks.

For more information, please visit: www.haier.com/uk or visit their facebook page @HaierUK.

It’s been a week since I started the Haier Fresh challenge and I just wanted to give you a little update on where things since my food shop last week. See below for my video diary which will tell you a little more about my habits this week.

It’s been absolutely shocking to discover how much I’m just throwing away because it’s gone off – from strawberries and salad, through to chicken and yoghurt. Appalling!

This challenge has made me much more conscious of my food waste. I’d definitely recommend doing something similar yourself at home, to keep tabs on what’s been thrown away.

My fridge is gradually emptying, as you can see…. with not much left from the original shop…. just a few stragglers.

I’m looking forward to seeing what Haier suggests to prevent such waste in my fridge!

Find out more about Haier here or follow them on Facebook @haieruk

Sponsored Post by Haier

Food waste is a huge issue in the UK, not only with supermarkets and shops but also in our own homes. I don’t know about you, but there’s always that cucumber you didn’t get to before it disintegrated or those yoghurts which have long passed their sell by date before you even think of them.

Environmental reasons are of course, a major factor as to why preventing food wastage in the home is so important, but let’s also not forget it can help us save a fortune!

For this reason, I was excited to take part in the Haier Fresher Food Challenge, which will see me updating on my normal shopping and fridge use, followed by some advice from the Haier team on how to keep my food fresher for longer…helping me to combat food wastage.

At the moment my fridge is definitely not being used to its full potential – I throw things in where they fit and then forget about them, unless I can see them! Although I create meal plans before I pop off to the shops, life changes during the week and we often come in late or move meals around just to confuse me.

I’d say the things we tend to throw away the most are salad bags, cucumbers (they really seem to deteriorate quickly), yoghurts and berries (which I always find go mouldy quickly). Food that is used in the meal plan doesn’t tend to go off, as we know when we’ll be using it and I’ll hunt through the fridge to find it. But anything which is either a healthy snack or salad based, soon goes off.

Here’s a little intro to my kitchen and of course, my weekly shop:

Here’s a little snap shot of my weekly shop

And here’s when it’s been all unpacked in a most higgeldy piggeldy manor in the fridge

These shots say it all really…there isn’t a system going on in the fridge at all!

Sorry for the fussy shots – the light from the fridge has messed it up a bit!

If you’ve not heard of Haier, the people behind this campaign to get us keeping food fresher for longer before, then let me tell you a little bit about them…

Haier are the global leader in major household appliances. You might not have heard of them before as they are fairly new to the UK market…so watch out, as you’ll see plenty about them over the coming months.

Their range of fridges and fridge freezers use Fresher Tech solutions, which are designed to help consumers to reduce their food waste and inevitably save money. Through better storage and use of our fridges, Haier wants to help us find easy ways to make our food stay fresher for longer and ultimately help prevent food waste.

Find out more about Haier here or follow them on Facebook @haieruk

Sponsored Post by Haier