Hugh's War on Waste

Its not just parsnips either, as apples also have to conform in size and shape and the amount of redness in their skins. They have to fit four exactly into those pre-formed trays with four recesses in them and be covered in cling film. Its barmy.
Another issue is that veg is not sold loose any more so if you only want a couple of carrots, tough, you have to buy half a kilo.
Oh bring back the old Waterworths where you could buy just as much as you wanted.
People also buy more than they need due to BOGOFS - i have never understood why supermarkets dont just make the goods half price! It would be better for the customer and would make no difference to the supermarket.

HildaW you have nailed the point of the parsnip issue spot on. The surplus was only produced in order to have sufficient "perfect" vegetables for the supermarket. Yes, with growing anything there is always some waste to be thrown away - or better still composted to improve the soil - but there is absolutely nothing wrong with misshapen vegetables. Sainsbury's actually sell veg in their Basics range with snappy slogans like "not good lookers but tasty just the same" so they do sell. As we saw in the programme, the shoppers would happily use them. We always grew all our own fruit and veg bar potatoes when I was growing up and cannot imagine not eating something, especially items that will be cut up for cooking, which is not perfect in shape, whatever that might be.

I was more dismayed by the apparent paradox at the beginning of the programme when Hugh went round removing 20% of people's shopping and binning it. Now if that wasn't a waste I'd like to know what is. As many people view the first few minutes of a programme before deciding to switch over or switch off there could be many going away with a very mistaken view of what is good.

Getting people to review what is in their cupboards and fridge/freezers and use items rather than discard them is a common theme but I think he covered it well. We seem to have educated a generation of people to believe food magically becomes inedible on the stroke of midnight if it reaches its use by date rather than relying on natural instincts such as sight and smell to determine what is fit to eat.

The waste is indeed terrible and I applaud any attempt to reduce it. I think wasting healthy veg is very different from wasting food which has deteriorated due to age and is potentially unsafe. Different approaches required.

One thing about the programme which made me feel uncomfortable was that HFW seemed to be encouraging people to ignore Use By Dates and consume anyway if it looked/smelled OK. Really? Presumably this is not always safe, if Use By Dates have any meaning, though I admit I do do this myself occasionally, in the knowledge/belief that I am taking a risk. I think it would be helpful to people for the programme to provide a bit more clarity around the exact meaning of Use By Date, whether a degree of interpretation is appropriate and what risks you run by doing so. Best Before Dates are another matter - happy to flout those.

I don't think people/companies should be criticised for throwing away produce labelled as potentially unsafe after a given date. It also seems wrong that such food, should be thought suitable for giving away to those in need. (I suppose unfit food might be considered better than no food, short term, but seems flawed as a solution.) Surely the food is either fit or it isn't and we all need to be able to rely on labelling.

I was going to contact the BBC about this programme but am sure I would be ignored. The problem seems to be that apart from a small minority most people in the UK just have too much money to spend so are not really bothered about waste. I got married in 1968 and can remember turning worn sheets 'side to middle' and making the sheets/blankets for my babies from old ones. My own daughters would not dream of doing either and I admit to now buying new sheets when we change our colour scheme. Of course without us all spending as we now do the economy would disintegrate but until we have to 'make do' the waste will continue.

I am thinking about the actual letter of complaint to the BBC and not so much its content.

Having complained to the BBC once or twice myself and received the most complacent replies, I wonder what crun's reply will be like?

Will they actually address her complaint in detail or just send out a 'gobbledygook coverall' response?

Crun, would you be able to tell us the response, when received?

Many thanks

I don't throw much away but most of it goes into one of my 3 compost bins. I have just emptied one with some great compost but melon and pumpkin seeds are still intact!!

rosequartz - eat mor fruit and veg, even if a bit mis-shapen (and less of other expensive and less nutritious or even damaging for your health) - makes total sense to me

Precisely, granjura
I am the DM of a farmer.

But if you are advising me, then you are telling this granny how to suck eggs
I was referring to crun's hypothesis that if everyone ate more so that food was not thrown away it would add up to 700 calories per day per person leading to a weight gain of 5 stone per year.

Of course, if everyone ate more of the fruit and vegetables that are discarded for not being 'perfect' and less of the junk and sweet stuff in the shops then people might lose weight!

Some of us are old enough to remember rationing.

I watched a man in Tescos today carefully selecting identical carrots, can't imagine him risking any wonky shapes!

Exactly MOnica If people eat all the perfectly good food they are currently throwing away it means they are not going straight out and buying even more food to chuck in the bin.

As far as the parsnips are concerned, I could see that very small ones could be a problem as they are so fiddly to peel (surely they could go for animal food?) but what on earth is wrong with very big ones? People slice them up anyway don't they. I think the mistake Morrisons made was labelling vegetables as misshapen. If they'd just been mixed in the the normal veg no one would have noticed, or cared.

crun I think you are being deliberately perverse to interpret HFW's programme the way you do. Are you trying to stir up a controversy? If so it is rather laboured.

Nobody on the programme suggested that consumers should buy all this extra produce and eat it. It was the shear appalling waste of having to grow twice as many vegetables as were needed just to meet supermarket cosmetic requirements that was deplored. If the farmer wasn't growing all those surplus parsnips he could plant other crops that we currently import from abroad.

As for the idea that encouraging people to use the food they were throwing away also encouraged over-eating then you were not listening. One lady said that by using up the food in her fridge instead of throwing it away she saved herself £25 a week on food she no longer bought.

What was said in the programme that really annoyed me was Morrisons saying piously that they would give all their surplus food to charities. That is fine but if every supermarket did that the charities would have more food than they knew what to do with and much of it would still be wasted. Anyway the supermarkets are dodging the issue. The real question is how they can improve the management of their stores so that, at the end of the day, there is far less surplus food to be disposed of.

And it really doesn't matter if pumpkin flesh is thrown away!

That is a very good point crun (about the weight gain that would result if all the unwanted calories were eaten)

I've never noticed that parsnips are all one size. Is it only Morrisons?

Does it matter if parsnips get thrown away?

Rubbish programme.

I am just watching this now. It is absolutely dreadful. The supermarkets are responsible for so much waste just because of the appearance.

Crun The supermarkets are responsible for planting the idea that the public will not like fruit and veg that is mishaped and play into the image.

I always used all the flesh from mine after it had been carved, I was astonished to find out that other people threw theirs away. I can remember being cross if candlewax dripped anywhere in the pumpkin because I wanted to roast or soup it the next day. I think if you grow your own, you are far less wasteful, you know how much energy and work goes into producing something edible. The seeds are lovely toasted or fried.

They'll have scooped the flesh out to carve the faces etc. last week if not earlier, so either they'll have eaten it by now or it'll have gone in the bin, I'd have thought.

Talking about waste - I really wonder how many people will actually use any of the flesh from the myriad of pumpkins sold over Halloween for anything at some point- or will they all just rot and be thrown in the bin???

rosequartz - eat mor fruit and veg, even if a bit mis-shapen (and less of other expensive and less nutritious or even damaging for your health) - makes total sense to me. Eat less red meat, processed meat (both very expensive) and cakes, biscuits, sugary drinks (all bad for you anyhow) - but more fruit and veg. Perfect- surely. Just making Bolognese, added a large handful of lentils, a small tin of sweetcorn and some frozen peas - and it will go much much further than meat and toms alone- and cuts down cost greatly- for instance. Will serve on broccoli with a little portion of basmati + wild rice as we are cutting carbs.

So what actually is your point crun? Why do you find it misleading?
Admittedly HFW ((or his researchers) found the most dumb inhabitants of the UK for their programme, but that's the norm for the media today, but waste is criminal and totally immoral, in my book anyway.
I've read PoV comments on this programme re parsnips. The growers were producing fabulous quality. ..the usual trolls were saying 'Who eats this rubbish anyway?' Okay the Dutch consider them only fit for horses, they obviously have never made curried parsnip soup...feel sorry for them, they're missing a treat.
Let's ignore the food waste.... look at the stupid rubbish that was found in the rubbish bins..... children's slippers, a saucepan I would have happily bought from a charity shop.
Mishapes are not beside the point crun, the supermarkets always blame someone else...never themselves. It's the customer.who demands perfect produce (really )..... it's the producer for not producing perfect goods (sorry you god-like buyers, nature doesn't leap through your hoops). No,. Morrison's. Sainsberys, Tescos et al. IT'S YOU
The KFC interview was pure window dressing ..... they will still throw away all that fried chicken when no one's looking. The bottom line is they are buying crap ingredients at great cost to the environment and people will still be more than happy to buy the end result. (Other fast food outlets fall into the same category )
The answer is in our own hands and our shopping trolleys . Complaints to the BBC or any other programme producers will achieve nothing. You can always shun supermarket veg altogether, and buy from farmers markets making sure your fruit and veg doesn't transverse the globe before it gets to you. But then if you can't live without strawberries or asparagus with your battery turkey at Christmas , so be it.

Their misshapen parsnips rejected by Morrisons which I saw in a picture in the paper looked a lot better than the ones we have just dug up from the garden!

I haven't seen the programme yet, but I would say that suggesting people buy the extra produce and eat more, if that is what was suggested, is ridiculous especially when there are people who can't afford to feed their families and have to rely on food banks (which don't take fresh produce).

However, such waste really grieves me, especially as it takes such a lot of hard work for the farmer to produce it.

Exactly, spot on Hilda. It's not complicated to get- perhaps it would help the obesity crisis if people switched to eat more vegetables, even if a bit mis-shaped, with their meals, including nutritious soups- rather than cakes and sweets!

In France, several supermarkets nos have a special fruit and veg aisle called 'ugly fruit and veg' (fruits et légumes môches) - with much cheaper prices, next to the 'normal' (or rather, abnormal...) one. Great - I am with Hugh all the way on this one- all this waste is obscene. And yes, the issues are complex and over-production and very cheap prices, 2 of the issues.

We have farmers in the family, so I know that there is a tremendous pressure to produce 'perfect' fruit and vegetables (not least the pressure the farmer puts upon him or herself to be the best!).
However, less than perfect produce is often sent off to the markets or for juicing.
The trouble with the UK is that I think that farmers have less leeway to decide what to do with a surplus or misshapen produce if they are producing for a particular supermarket which may put restrictions on them - which seems ridiculous.

It's not like having a salaried job is it - the good years have to offset the lean years as the income is inconsistent and some years result in a loss.

There was a guy on the program saying that during years when bad harvest reduced the supply, the mis-shapes sold along with all the rest, so the real issue is oversupply. There is oversupply and rock bottom prices in the milk market too, but there's no mis-shapen milk.

Just one point. I understood from the Morrisons/Parsnip element of the programme that the sheer amount of parsnips that they have to grow to then enable them to supply the percentage that will meet the 'cosmetic' standards makes the whole process very inefficient and they are not making any profit at all. Their (the farmer's) argument was that if the criteria was not so strict they could (a) plant fewer (b) use fewer resources (c) waste less and actually make a profit.
........or perhaps I'm too simple.

Hope you get a reply.

BBC are notoriously bad at 'ignore'

I at least have had some success in the ST, Culture , and Have your say.

Some very pithy comments there this week, not one of mine!