Bradford supermarket giant Morrisons is offering Christmas shoppers advice on how to cut down on the massive mountain of waste which is thrown away every year.

The company has produced a series of leftover food recipes to encourage people to use surplus Christmas food as ingredients for meals.

Among the ideas are salmon fish cakes and egg fried rice with prawns for leftover fish starters, spiced turkey, pea and tomato pilaff for the leftover meat and a curried parsnip soup for the uneaten veg.

Recent research conducted by the Waste & Resources Action Programme (Wrap) shows that about a third of the food we buy ends up being thrown away - most of which could have been eaten.

Over the Christmas period the amount of food wasted increases by a massive 80 per cent, equivalent to 230,000 tonnes of food valued at £274 million being thrown into the rubbish dump.

Simon Cowley, of Morrisons, said: "It is inevitable that some food will be left over at Christmas time. Without thought this excess food could easily end up being wasted.

"We want to help prevent this. With the support and help of food specialist Morrisons, people can bring their leftovers to life as ingredients in their own right - to create delicious and inspirational meal solutions.

"We hope that our exclusive free recipe cards will help to transform West Yorkshire's leftover vegetables and meat into delicious meals for Boxing Day."

Recipe cards are in store now and will remain there until January 6. The recipes are also available free at www.morrisons. co.uk.

The move comes at a time when Morrisons is trying to improve its environmental performance. In October the firm was named as one of the worst in the country for using high volumes of packaging by the Local Government Association.

Earlier this year it launched a coding system for its products, allowing shoppers to see how recyclable each of the items was.

The company hopes to use 15 per cent less own-brand packaging by 2010.