Do your vegetables and fruit go off really quickly when you store them in the fridge? Well there could be a reason for that.

Every year we throw away around 2.6 billion pounds worth of rotting fruit and  veg. That’s approximately 40 pounds per household. A lot of this waste is down to poor storage. We need to keep certain foods apart. Some fruit and veg produce ethylene gases as they ripen which can shorten the shelf life of other items. Apples, pears, apricots,bananas and kiwi fruit all produce these gases as they start to ripen. As they are all doing this together they are fine, but you can’t store these with vegetables as they will make them ripen prematurely.

Even some fruits can’t be stored together, such as apples and watermelon, bananas don’t get along with anything else. Sweet potatoes and potatoes should be stored in a cool dark place to prevent early sprouting, but not the fridge. This is also the case for garlic, onions too.

Fruit and veg that you can store together are berries and grapes, cauliflower and broccoli, apples and cherries, plums and tomatoes, beets and carrots, cucumber and peppers, and peas and sweetcorn.

Fruits that can go in a fruit bowl are tangerines and pears, avocado and kiwi fruit, and bananas on their own.

So next time your fruit and veg seem to go bad overnight, spare a little thought for how you’re storing them, and you might just increase their shelf life  and so prevent some of the waste.