A leading director at Tesco has caused a media storm by appearing to blame consumers for the retailer’s fresh produce waste.
Matt Simister, food sourcing director at Tesco, told a House of Lords inquiry into the issue that UK customers “always pick the cream of the crop”, forcing stores to bin thousands of tons of old or misshapen produce.
Nevertheless, Simister told yesterday’s committee meeting that Tesco can do more to help “educate” consumers, and needs to be as flexible as possible when it comes to “ugly” fruit and vegetables.
Simister said: “The standards are there because that’s what customers tell us they want in their perishable produce.
“Customers naturally select; they always pick the cream of crop first and the rest of it then gets left.Then the new deliveries come in and you have the new cream of the crop – the old, ugly misshapen produce goes to waste.
“Customers will always make the choice of the one that cosmetically looks better. That’s a very difficult reality to us.”
He added that Tesco would try to persuade more people to buy misshapen fruit and vegetables, including by using more cut-price deals.
But, he said the retailer sends much of its misshapen produce to its outlets in Central Europe, where customers operating on tighter budgets do not object.
In October, Tesco revealed that it generated almost 30,000 tons of food waste in the first six months of the year.
It found that up to two thirds of supermarket food ends up in the bin, including 68 per cent of bagged salads, and a quarter of grapes.
Much of the food is thrown away by customers but large amounts are lost because they have been on display too long.
Simister said: “We can put more misshapen products through our value range at better prices, we’ve been doing that for years. There are opportunities to do more.
“It’s less easy to be flexible with the standard ranges, but we can be more flexible with the product that flushes through the stores at a good price for customers.
“We do have a role to educate people. It’s weak to just do what customers think. Our role is to [help them] to make the right choices.”
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