It’s midday on a sunny Friday and something is happening in Trafalgar Square. Thousands of people have swarmed to the London landmark, ready for a free lunch made from food that would have otherwise never made it to the public plate. Tonnes of the stuff, all considered the wrong size, shape or colour.
Feeding the 5,000 is about filling bellies, not bins. It confronts the fact that up to half of food is wasted and shows the potential for change, in the vats of spiced vegetables, the bottles of freshly pressed apple juice and the snaking queues of consumers set to tuck in.
The man behind the movement is Tristram Stuart, author of Waste: Uncovering a Global Food Scandal and this year’s winner of international environmental award The Sophie Prize for his fight against food waste.
“This has really caught the imagination of the public and reminded everyone that there is a tasty solution to food waste, and that is eating it,” he says. “The solution to the problem is relatively simple. It means realising that food has a value too great to be wasted and that it’s an economic, gastronomic and environmental opportunity.
“Tesco is sourcing wonky carrots, Waitrose has weather-blemished apples on its shelves,” Stuart continues. “That’s a start. You can buy imperfect fruit and vegetables if you want to. If consumers send a message to supermarkets to say that they will accept all shapes and sizes, they will have more choice and growers will be able to sell more of their crop. That’s the direction we should be going in.
“The best thing to do with food that is fit for human consumption is to feed it to people, whether it is sold or donated to charities to support the four million people suffering from food poverty in this country,” he insists. “After that, it should be given to animals. Only then, as a last resort, should it be recycled or used for anaerobic digestion.”
This lunch for 5,000 people, held last Friday, shows just how far food waste has come up the agenda.
But the event still throws up so many questions. What would have happened to all this food? What is happening in the supply chain? Are supermarkets taking the right practical measures?
Food waste is a hot topic. WRAP numbers published last week confirm that UK households have cut food waste by an entire Wembley Stadium (or 1.1 million tonnes), which is a 13 per cent reduction from 2006-07 to 2010. Almost all of the reduction (86 per cent) is food that could have been eaten, which is a significant step. However, consumers still throw away 7.2mt (or nine Wembley stadiums) a year, at a cost of £680 a year for the average family with children.
The figures are enough to make your head spin, not least because of the range of stats out there. It’s a challenge for the food supply chain, the major retailers and for consumers, and one of their few common goals.
This turnaround could well be a response to austerity measures but it has been driven by the government, retailers and suppliers tackling the issue, working together and then competing for the best results.
The coalition government released the results of its waste policy review in June, in which DEFRA secretary of state Caroline Spelman insists that there are “a number of changes to policies and practices across the community, a number of small levers which we can pull in order to deliver long-term change” as the UK heads towards what she calls a “zero waste economy”.
But she warns that the government “cannot act alone, and must work in partnership with local government, industry, civil society, consumers and communities”.
“It is about making it easy for people and businesses to do the right thing, whether at home or at work,” she says.
To this end, the government is in the process of developing a comprehensive Waste Prevention Programme, working towards new voluntary responsibility deals, introducing new guidance on date labelling and publishing a guide on generating energy from waste.
But it can be tricky to square the arguments. Shrink-wrapping a cucumber, for example, gives it up to 11 days’ extra shelf life but the packaging will end up in the waste chain if it is not disposed of properly. Anaerobic digestion, another case in point, is controversial in that some fear it might encourage a “dash for trash” if businesses look to turn more waste into energy.
WRAP director of design and waste prevention Richard Swannell stresses that food waste spans a number of issues that are all interlinked. “It’s a significant economic issue, it’s about carbon, it’s about water - that’s a significant use of resources,” he says. “It’s not just about landfill but about the resources that have gone into it and we have to keep those in mind.
“We want to work with the sector to get the step change that we need because partnership is critical.”
In fact, WRAP’s Love Food Hate Waste campaign has been credited for households throwing away less.
No one wants to waste food. It costs businesses alone £5bn a year, apart from the ethical questions it raises. DEFRA director of climate change, waste and atmosphere Neil Thornton maintains that there’s an “an awful lot of common agreement” but he admits that it’s a complicated issue. “Waste prevention is an attractive but difficult area,” he says. “It’s at the top of the waste hierarchy but it’s not as easy to see how the government can help in a big, single way. We hesitate to step in with regulation, but information and understanding is critically important.”
All the supermarkets are in the middle of the second phase of the Courtauld Commitment, from 2010-12, which sees commercial players signing up to voluntary agreements. This means that they can set goals before, as Thornton puts in, “unleashing the tigers of competition and competing like mad to do it”. He explains that this “works with the grain of business”.
A similar drive is happening within the supply base, especially as companies look to lower costs. Produce World is a model example, keeping waste to a minimum by considering every option when its lines do not make the grade commercially, looking at processing and stock feed ahead of anything else. The firm supplied six tonnes of vegetables for Feed the 5,000, providing outgraded potatoes, carrots and onions.
Adele Carroll, group sustainability and safety manager at Produce World, admits that the supply chain can do better but she stresses that the consumer still needs educating. “We do what we can to reduce the amount of food that doesn’t make it through the supply chain,” she says. “There’s a lot more that can be done in terms of redistributing food and then it’s about finding the next best solution.
“As a business, we are savvy about reducing waste because it’s a cost to us. There’s room for improvement at every level of the supply chain. The biggest risk, however, is at the consumer end and we must keep educating.”
As last Friday goes to show, this seems to be on the right track. -
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