Food waste champions Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Tristram Stuart are urging supermarkets to be more transparent about how much food they waste.
Following campaigning by environmental organisation Feedback, Tesco and Sainsbury’s have already agreed to publish their food waste data. And the two retailers recently called on other supermarkets in the UK and globally to join them in publishing transparent data on their food waste.
Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall said: “Food waste is something we are all responsible for – individuals and families included – but the level of waste created by the major retailers is close to criminal.
“Consumers want to see supermarkets dropping the ridiculous cosmetic standards on fruit and veg that cause so much perfectly good food to be ditched.
“Retailers must also rein in the over-production and over-ordering that lead to mountains of fresh food hitting the bins before it hasever even seen a shop shelf.”
He added: “The big players in food retailing must take the lead in the war against waste and be completely honest and transparent about their own wasteful practices- it's theonlyway to come up with sane andsuccessfulsolutions.”
Tristram Stuart stressed that accurate and transparent figures are needed to ensure that surplus food is properly redistributed.
“Without accurate figures on where food is going to waste, it can’t be redistributed to people who would otherwise go hungry,” he said. “Social entrepreneurs can’t seek delicious solutions like Toast ale, which uses fresh surplus bread to make beer, and the government can’t create the right policies to help all of us tackle waste.
“There are so many brilliant solutions to food waste, but they all start with transparency.”
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