My invite from Gordon Brown to attend 10 Downing Street

How exciting, I have just received an invitation from Gordon Brown to attend an event at no.10 Downing Street to celebrate the success of Britain's small and medium sized businesses.
The reception, which will be held in a couple of weeks time, aims to bring together a wide variety of entrepreneurs and business owners to toast their success through what has been a very testing time. I suspect I have come to the attention of Downing Street's Events Office through Business Link, whose help and support I have received over the last couple of years. Since starting my business in 2007, I have been in touch with Business Link from the outset. Primarily I got in touch with them to ensure I got solid advice and support to build the foundations of my business, then latterly they have been there to help with more complex issues such as Intellectual Property law and PR for my first product, Count On It food labels.
Since receiving my invitation I have found out via conversations on Twitter that Claire Young (you may remember her from the BBC programme The Apprentice) and Nadine Hill, another mumpreneur will also be attending. I am really looking forward to the event, not only will it be a fantastic opportunity for me to meet like-minded people, on a personal level it is a once in a lifetime opportunity - something will definitely be telling the grandchildren about.

Count On It food labels feature in Food & Drink Technology magazine

Count On It food labels (and myself) have just been featured in Food and Drink Technology International magazine - the article is as follows:-

LABELLED WITH LOVE
31 July 2009

Fed up with her family’s food wastage, Lyndsey Young was passionate about finding a solution…

As she tossed yet another jar of half-used pesto in the bin, Lyndsey Young decided enough was enough. Too many half-eaten jars of food had gone the same way. Yet she hated wasting food and only did so because she could never remember how long it had been languishing in the fridge.

“We all know that, once opened, most products have to be consumed within a certain amount of time,” says the mum-of-two from Bottesford in Leicestershire. “But there was always so much going on at home, I found it difficult to remember when something was first opened or stored.

“I was always throwing away half-used jars and leftovers because I was never sure how long they had been in my fridge. Rather than risk giving it to my young sons, I discarded it.”

But Lyndsey resented such wastefulness, and was sure others felt the same way. So she arranged for some market research to see if a cross-section of women also binned food for the same reason. The results of the research confirmed her suspicions. And so Lyndsey, 41, set about devising a solution and decided to fund her mission with the £15,000 she had won three years previously on TV quiz show Deal Or No Deal.

“Within days I had come up with the concept of stickers featuring scratch-off panels which allow consumers to mark on a jar or packet the date the product was first opened, stored or frozen,” she explains. “I had a name too – the Count On It (COI) label. Quite simply, it acts as a memory jogger, helping busy households safely track the life of their food.”

Feedback on trial samples led to the development of a prototype, and – with the support of government-funded business advisory group Business Link – just five months after she first came up with the idea in April last year, Lyndsey’s labels were in full-scale production.


“As the labels help to address the problem of food waste, which continues to be in the public eye due to the current economic climate and WRAP’s LoveFoodHateWaste campaign, and more and more people are rediscovering the joys and freshness that home cooking can bring, my initial marketing strategy was to target both the cookware and ‘foodie’ markets,” reveals Lyndsey.

“I exhibited the labels at a range of carefully selected regional food and drink festivals and it was demonstrated on stage alongside culinary experts such as James Martin and Anjum Anand.”

Lyndsey struck gold just three months after her idea went into production when kitchenware retailer Lakeland agreed to stock the labels.

“I sent them a speculative sample and they really liked it,” she explains. “Since then sales have continued to grow, and Lakeland has confirmed its placement for the foreseeable future.”

Another recent success for Lyndsey is a decision by homeware catalogue company Betterware to start selling her product later this year.

“As food safety is paramount to me as a mum, another strategy is to market COI to parents and mums-to-be as a time-saving, food safety product.”

The COI system recently received its first celebrity endorsement, too, in the shape of Amanda Holden, who said of the labels: “I’m beginning to wonder how I ever managed without them.”

As both food safety and wastage is clearly so close to Lyndsey’s heart, what does she think of recent government proposals to phase out ‘sell by’ and ‘best before’ dates?

“It is a step in the right direction but I believe it is equally important that consumers have a better understanding of what the labels on their food actually mean,” she says. “Too many households throw away perfectly good food because they are confused by food labelling. Simple advice on how best to store and use food in the home would help consumers manage their food in both a cost-effective and safety conscious manner.”

In the meantime, she is happy for her labelling system to lend a helping hand.

“The future for COI looks bright, with plans to expand the product lines to include the catering, food service and pharmaceutical industries, as well as private label producers,” she says. “I also truly believe that it will help both producers and consumers to reduce the millions of tons of waste that currently go into landfill in this country.”

'Sniff & Hoper' or 'Chucker-outter' have you considered this?

Are you a ‘sniff & hoper’ or ‘chucker-outter’? That’s the question Count On It ‘angels’ will be posing to shoppers in Peterborough city centre this weekend.

Count On It labels, the scratch-off, food label memory jogger which helps families manage their food more safely, whilst reducing unnecessary food waste – will be given away this weekend on a ‘fridge-friendly’ postcard that aims to raise awareness of the potential problems of eating food past it’s safe date and also throwing it away ‘just in case’.
As we are all too aware the price of food continues to rise, but many people do not realize that the amount of edible food that goes to waste and the number of cases of food poisoning also continue to rise at an alarming rate.

Sniff & Hoper?

Many people pride themselves on being a ‘sniff & hoper’, but most don’t realize that although foods may look, smell and even taste fine, they still harbor bacteria such as E.coli and salmonella that can cause food poisoning.
According to the Mayo Clinic Women’s HealthSource, incorrect storage and the use of food past it’s use by date causes about 325,000 people in the USA to be hospitalized every year because of food poisoning and 5,000 people die. It is a similar story in the UK, with the number of cases of listeria in people over 60 years of age doubling in the past nine years. 95% of cases end up needing hospital treatment and one in three of the people getting food poisoning caused by listeria die as a result. (FSA)

Consider these food safety reminders:-

 Make sure your fridge is cold enough - If you fridge isn’t cold enough food poisoning bacteria will still be able to grow. Your fridge should be between 0ºC and 5ºC.
 Refrigerate perishable food straight away – All foods that are perishable (i.e. goes off quickly) or has a label which says ‘keep refrigerated’ should be stored in the fridge and eaten within two days.
 Follow storage instructions – some jars and bottles must be kept in the fridge once opened and eaten within a certain time. Always check the label and keep a track on how long they have been opened – Count On It labels are just to job for this – just scratch off the date and you will have a permanent reminder as to how long they’ve been stored.
 Food should not be kept out of the fridge for more than four hours, so if you’ve prepared anything beforehand, keep it refrigerated until you’re ready to eat it.
 Leftovers – cool these as quickly as possible then store them in the fridge. Once stored, leftovers must be eaten within two days, except cooked rice which must be eaten within one day. Don’t forget to store them in a food container and label the date when first stored – again Count On It labels are perfect as they stick on any surface and can easily and cleanly be removed after use.

Chucker-outter?

According to WRAP’s Lovefoodhatewaste research, the main reasons people throw away food is because of either ‘cooking or preparing too much’, e.g. cooking too much pasta and it gets either left in the saucepan or on the plate’. Another reason is because food ‘is not used up in time’, good examples being fruit and vegetables go off in storage, or not eating food before it goes past its use-by date in the fridge. This can be because of a number of reasons, sometimes because of our increasingly busy lifestyles we change our plans, or we just forget what we’ve got in our cupboards, or we forget to fridge or freeze leftovers, which could be used later. Another common reason is that we just forget how long we’ve had food stored in our fridge and freezer, so rather than risk it we throw it away.
The problem with this is two-fold, not only are we needlessly wasting perfectly edible food, we are wasting our money too.

Consider these money saving tips to help you love your food more:-

 Regularly check what’s in your fridge and freezer – How often have you looked in your fridge to see an opened packet of ham or mayonnaise and you’ve no idea how long it’s been in there. Keep an eye on the use-by dates and also the storage instructions on jarred or bottled products. By tracking how long things have been opened or stored, you can be sure it is still safe to eat. To save you from having to remember all of the dates, Count On It labels will show you exactly the date of opening each product.

 Buy one, get one to freeze – rather than leave both items in your fridge and hope you’ll get round to using them. Split the pack, store one in the fridge and the other in a labelled food container – this way you will know exactly when you first froze it.

 Leftovers – Get storing all of your leftovers, be it leftover vegetables from Sunday lunch or the last portion of a midweek chilli con carne. Just pop them in a food container, label them and either fridge them for the next day or freeze them for a ‘ready meal’ at a later date. Not only do leftovers save you food waste and money, they save you time, what could be simpler and nicer than heating up a homecooked meal in minutes.

 Plan your meals – Rather than guessing your way around the supermarket, simply check your fridge, freezer and cupboards before you go and then write a list of what you actually need. Another good idea is to forward plan your week’s meals – it may sound like a long job, but at least during the week it will save you time as you will know for sure you have the food in and won’t need to make any extra trips out for ingredients or take-outs!
Not only do the labels help to reduce food waste - it is estimated that the average family throws away up to £610 worth of edible food each year - but customers are also finding them useful for labelling things such as medicines, contact lenses, cooker hood filters or anything where a reminder of an expiry date is needed.

Count On It labels currently are on sale online at www.count-on-it.co.uk, in Lakeland Ltd and a selection of cookshops, farmshops and deli’s across the region. The scratch-off labels are made of a sustainable material and come in boxes of 25 labels and retail at £1.99.

BBC Easy Cook features Count On It labels

How exciting, BBC Easy Cook magazine has run a great feature on Count On It labels in their latest edition (Issue 24). The feature in their 'Easy Food News' page highlights it as a 'best new product to make time you spend in the kitchen quick, easy and fun'. The write-up and image sits alongside Jamie Oliver's Red Nose recipe book, BBC Good Food website and Waitrose Cooks; Ingredients range. As well as being available from Lakeland, Count On It labels are available online at www.count-on-it.co.uk.

UK households save £300 million worth of food waste

According to WRAP (Waste and Resources Action Programme), new figures revealed this week show that since the launch of their Love Food Hate Waste campaign back in 2007, almost two million more households in the UK have saved money by cutting back on throwing food away.

This increase in public awareness resulted in an overall saving of £296 million a year, saving 137,000 tonnes of food from being thrown away and a reduction of 600,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases emissions, which is, according to WRAP , "the same carbon impact as taking 100,000 return flights to Australia out of the skies."

WRAP's research identified some of the main reasons why households feel they are cutting back on waste, these include:

Becoming better at planning meals so that food isn't wasted (37%)
Becoming better at using up food that is already in the fridge or cupboard before buying new food (31%)
Becoming better at measuring the correct portion sizes so that we don't cook too much (22%)
Becoming better at using our freezers (20%)

Not only is this great news for WRAP and the country as a whole, it is great news for 'Count On It' food freshness labels as they also contribute towards the reduction in food waste by giving households an easy method of tracking the freshness of their food, helping them get the most of their food.

By simply peeling off, sticking on and scratching off the date of opening or storing, Count On It food freshness labels let households know exactly how long food has been stored, helping them get even better at using up the food they already have, whilst getting more out of their food and wasting less of it.

Count On It ... to save time, money and waste.

www.count-on-it.co.uk

For more information on WRAP's report visit, www.wrap.org.uk.

TV stars tell Boston woman you can count on us

Published Date: 17 December 2008
By Staff Copy
Thursday, 3.45pm - TV STAR Amanda Holden and a host of other famous mums are backing the waste saving innovation of a former Boston woman.
The Britain's Got Talent judge is one of many famous faces endorsing Count On It freshness labels, the brainchild of former Boston High School pupil Lyndsey Young.


The stick-on labels feature scratch-off panels which show when a product was first opened, stored or frozen, helping to avoid unnecessary wastage.


"They are simple to use but so effective. I'm beginning to wonder how I ever managed without them," said Amanda Holden, mother to a two-year-old.


TV actresses and young mums Sarah Parish, Angela Griffin and Jane Wall are also behind the product.


Mrs Young, 40, a mother of two, says she is 'thrilled' to have their support.


"I have a picture of them all holding one of the boxes on my fridge. It's a bit surreal. I'm so used to seeing them on television."


Mrs Young came up with the idea for the labels at the start of this year. Now, at its end, the product is ready to go on sale in Lakeland stores nationwide from January, after being all ready stocked in Boston.


For an economy in recession, it's a defiant success.


"Sales are going really well," said Mrs Young, who now lives in Bottesford, near Grantham. "People are picking up that food prices are still increasing and conscious how much food they are throwing away. I am now getting a lot more interest than at the start of the year."


l Count On It labels will be available in the new Lakeland brochure and online at www.lakeland.co.uk from January. They are also available from www.count-on-it.co.uk and at Johnson's Garden Centre, Wainfleet Road, Boston.



Page 1 of 1

Last Updated: 18 December 2008 3:41 PM
Source: Boston Standard
Location: Boston

Ignorance is bliss?

Food waste is a huge problem, we all know it is because we are all constantly being encouraged to recycle, compost, use leftovers, meal plan, all sorts - but why do we all think it is someone else's problem? WRAP statistics claim that 9 out of 10 people are adamant that they do NOT waste food, yet these very same households are throwing away nearly 90KG of avoidable food waste each year. Wasting food does not mean you are a bad person, it just means that you have got used to decades of affordable food, but this is changing, food IS getting more expensive, so most of us will have to wake up and smell the coffee. Value food more and save some money in the meantime - oh and don't forget your Count On It labels to help you achieve all this!

Local Authorities showing an interest

Started to get some genuine interest now from Local Authorities. I am so pleased, to me it is an obvious solution, too much edible food waste, high prices to sort and dispose and even higher price being paid by the environment - Count On It can make a difference - even it is just scratching the surface (good PR link in here I think!).