Hugh's War on Waste

”Some of the surplus food does go for animal feed which would continue.”
In which case the mis-shapes that people are rejecting at present are not really waste at all. Or is the livestock picky about ugly veg too?

”People should be eating more fruit and especially more vegetables instead of the junk”
In which case more of the farmers producing junk food will go out of business.

”The population is growing”
By which time the farmers will have gone under long ago.

”Many people are going hungry in this country”
Not enough to eat more than a microscopic fraction of the waste, as I’ve already explained.

”You sound as if you are very anti-farmers”
I’m not anti-farmer at all, just pro common sense.

”It can be used to grow crops we currently import”
If we do that the foreign farmers will go bust, many of whom are much poorer than ours. If our farmers could compete, we wouldn’t be importing it in the first place.

”it can be used to build houses”
What on earth has that got to do with farmers going bust???

”What Hugh is advocating is a relaxing of the cosmetic standards so that farmers can sell more of what they grow, but at the same time they will then need to plant less, use fewer chemicals (growing less intensively) and therefore make a profit.”
If they grow less intensively they will be less productive, less profitable, less competitive, and go under. If they need to plant less then they need less labour, so there will be fewer farm workers and farms will go under. If kind hearted farmer Giles tries to keep the staff he doesn’t need out of charity he will go out of business because he’ll get undercut by farms that make their surplus staff redundant, and if every farm cuts their staff, the smallest ones will go under because they don't have the economy of scale like the larger ones.

”Oh - instead of complaining to the BBC about the programme being misleading (how?)”
It’s misleading because it pretends that cutting waste won’t put more farmers out of work. It’s just manipulative of HFW to cast himself as the champion of the farmers, valiantly fighting a crusade against the wicked supermarkets, when a successful campaign to eliminate all the waste will create even more job losses.

”Morrisons (again!!) said they were going to help the dairy farmers by giving them a fair price for their milk which would enable them to keep their businesses going.”
Keep their businesses going doing what? Producing milk that nobody wants, like paying farmers to produce wine lakes and butter mountains in the 1970s? That’s how communist USSR wrecked their economy.

”Morrisons managers really think the public and the farmers are gullible idiots, don't they.”
I think the people on this forum must think the supermarkets are blithering idiots. They have huge databases which tell them exactly what people will buy, and at what price, if people want it they will sell it. We had the program about poor working conditions at Aldi recently, and again it was all about placing the blame on the supermarkets. It doesn’t seem to have occurred to the program producers that if people were willing to pay higher prices to cover better employee conditions Aldi and Lidl wouldn’t be the fastest growing sector of the market.

”the other week we had a bag of small mixed peppers as a free extra.....the enclosed note stated that they were too small to sell as usual but the farmers did not want to waste them...hence they were passed on as freebies.”
So the farmer who gave you those was actually harming the business of the farmer who could have sold you whatever you would have eaten instead of the freebies. What a wicked thing to do, I thought it was only the supermarkets who indulged in such cut-throat tactics as buy one get one free.

”If all the supermarkets offered fruit and veg of mixed sizes and shapes then customers would have to accept what was on offer.”
If Tesco only have ugly parsnips left in the box, customers can just go down the road to another shop that’s got pretty ones left when there’s a surplus in the market. The supermarkets are not idiots, if customers bought the ugly stuff, they’d stock it.

”crun would you like to work for a boss who set out impossibly high standards for your work then took money from you instead of paying you?”
A quote from one of my bosses: “It’s been noticed who goes home at 5pm. Anyone who doesn’t work until at least 7pm can expect to go to the top of the redundancy list”.

”there was over-production but only because Morrisons demanded perfection”
Absolute rubbish. A large part of the waste is of foodstuffs that don’t come mis-shapen in the first place.

A shrinking agricultural workforce is the inevitable consequence of improvements in productivity, because unlike other commodities, we can’t consume more food when the supply increases. In the middle ages there was 58.1% of the population employed in agriculture, now it’s just 1.2%. Are the people on here seriously suggesting that we should still be paying the other 56.9% to produce mountains of food that we can’t eat, and if not, why should things be any different in future?

Fifty years ago Britain had the most productive farmers in Europe, now we’re lagging behind. In the days of the wine lakes and butter mountains French productivity was about half that of ours, now the French are about 30% better. Why? Because they stopped producing food that we don’t need when the taxpayer stopped subsidising it. By contrast with that there’s been virtually no increase in British productivity at all in the last 20 years, perhaps because there are too many farmers who are willing to carry on when they’re making a loss.

Yes, Deeda, I know about the clocking-on thing - I worked at Asda too nearly 40 years ago.

Aldi staff (according to the programme) are supposed to come in to work 15 minutes before their shift starts to check that everything's in order and sort out anything that isn't and are not paid for those 15 minutes.

Very understandable, rosequartz.

I'm not overkeen on supermarkets really. We used to do our shopping at the local Co-op, which I felt was probably run on more 'moral' lines, but it closed last year so we had to go elsewhere.

When I worked in Asda about 20 years ago Ana I know they had a way of looking at the times you clocked on and off. I can't remember the details now but I know that if you were five minutes late you lost 15 minutes money. We were all to glad to have a job to complain.

Perhaps I have a thing about them MaizieD because they put my DN out of business when they opened up near her shop.

In the supermarkets that we used to use in Portugal the fruit and veg were always mis-shapen, irregular sizes, wonky and scabby, but perfectly edible and no-one batted an eyelid! They were loose, so you could buy just one of anything.

If all the supermarkets offered fruit and veg of mixed sizes and shapes then customers would have to accept what was on offer. That way there would be far less waste. Until all the supermarkets sign up to do this, I can't see it happening

rosequartz Of course it's the same milk; it's just that Morrisons agreed to pay farmers more for some of it. I'd like to believe that they aren't entirely evil and that this is, in fact, what they are doing

It was the unpaid 15 minutes at the start of every shift that got me, Deeda - it was in the Aldi employees handbook but according to the employment expert on the programme, it's an illegal practice.

Ana conditions at our local Aldi seem very good. The staff are always happy and cheerful and there don't seem to be the problems they showed on that programme with stock being thrown about and damaged. As with most things I imagine it depends on the management. I spent a horrible year with Sainsbury's. As an assistant manager I was on a fixed salary and eventually worked out that, with the hours I was expected to do, I was earning about £1.50 an hour. The store manager and area manager were both aware of this and didn't care and hygeine in the store was downright dangerous.

Isn't it typical that when Morrisons were asked about the parsnip farmer going out of business the answer was "Well if we're that bad why didn't they go somewhere else?" Surely the fact that they've had to give up shows that there was nowhere else!

I buy a box of Veg from Riverford Organics....Yes its pricy but the quality is always excellent and I top up from local supermarkets or smaller shops. I just feel that I should encourage smaller producers and although Riverford is totally organic its more about the low impact farming it encourages rather than the whole 'organic is better' vibe.
Any way what I wanted to say was that the other week we had a bag of small mixed peppers as a free extra.....the enclosed note stated that they were too small to sell as usual but the farmers did not want to waste them...hence they were passed on as freebies. They were excellent quality and I found an odd one at the back of the fridge 3 weeks after it had been delivered still crisp and unwrinkled. Now that's the way to do it.

I'm also a bit puzzled as to why you think that the more expensive milk should look any different

I just don't understand why Morrisons would sell exactly the same milk at two different prices, and I assume it is because they give the farmers more, but it just seems a very odd way to do it to me.
I did buy the more expensive milk when I went there last, but it still puzzled me . When people on a tight budget opt for the cheaper milk then Morrisons can turn round to the farmers and say that it wasn't a success. However, it milk is sold at a fair price for the farmer it wouldn't cost much more for a family - perhaps they'd buy less of the fizzy stuff that is so bad for us.

Like selling the ugly veg at the same price as the beautiful veg. When people reject it because it costs the same (and didn't look as fresh) Morrisons can turn round and blame the customer.

I know that Waitrose, the Co-op and M&S pay the farmers a fair price and I pay extra for certain brands in other supermarkets like Tesco (such as Calon Wen milk)

I hope you're completely wrong about the Morrison's milk, rosequartz. because I have instructed my DP, who does most of our shopping, to buy the more expensive stuff on the grounds that farmers are paid more.

I'm also a bit puzzled as to why you think that the more expensive milk should look any different

I try to avoid food waste as that is how I was brought up; I am by my DD who regards anything past its use by or sell by date as deadly poison and heaves it out without a care in the world. Yet I brought her up - how has this happened?

Morrisons (again!!) said they were going to help the dairy farmers by giving them a fair price for their milk which would enable them to keep their businesses going.

So they sell milk which looks just the same but is more expensive.
These spivs Morrisons managers really think the public and the farmers are gullible idiots, don't they.

I bought it but I don't trust them to pass the extra money on to the farmers and I won't be shopping there again - nor at other supermarkets that have the same attitude to those who produce our food.

If people are offered food labelled 'beautiful' and 'ugly' all for the same price, of course they will go for the beautiful. If all those perfect and near perfect parsnips we saw in the first episode were just bagged up together and sold as 'parsnips' they would all sell.

Except, why on earth bag parsnips, or carrots or any root vegetable in bags? How many people eat these veg on a daily basis? When I buy root vegetables I usually only want a couple, or even only one to use foor a stew or casserole, or as a side dish with one meal. If I do buy a bag I use what I need and then immediately chop and freeze the rest for use possibly months later.

I have yet to see last night's episode as I am in Frane at the moment.

I used to find that Morrisons fruit and veg went mouldy very quickly at one time - especially tomatoes and cucumber, which is their responsibility as they would have left the farm in peak condition, so it must have been their storage facilities. They have improved in the last couple of years, or it may have been just the store we used to go to.

I watched that programme too, Deeda, but surely they shouldn't be selling produce that is actually mouldy (as they were doing in some stores).

The point they were making about the sell by dates was that they weren't given clearly. Customers were expected to work out the week and day by a code.

I was more concerned about the extra unpaid week the staff had to work per year!

I've just watched the second part of Hugh's War on Waste.

So Morrison's decided to sell 'Ugly Courgettes' alongside cosmetically perfect courgettes - for the same price per lb
The Ugly ones were soft on the ends (obviously been hanging around for a while) but they tried to make us believe that they arrived at Morrisons at the same time!

Why would they sell them for the same price? I don't suppose the farmers got the full price for them from the supermarket. My farming family don't get the same price for 2nd grade as for 1st grade produce. Do they take us and the farmers for idiots?

Oh - instead of complaining to the BBC about the programme being misleading (how?) I signed this instead:

wastenotuk.com

I hope the supermarkets keep their 'promise' to stop so much waste of perfectly good food and send more to charities and Fareshare.

Did anyone see Dispatches on Channel 4 where the reporter was complaining about Aldi selling past sell by date vegetables? The fact that they were perfectly edible appeared to have escaped him. I like to have heard Hugh's view! I've never understood dates on vegetables any way, once I've got them home I never look at the dates, I just look at the condition of them. Surely any idiot can see if their cucumber has gone soggy or there's mould on the carrots? You don't need a date to tell you.

Yes, thanks Hilda for summing it up so well.

indeed, thanks.

Excellent post Hilda, thanks for summing it up so succinctly and sensibly

Crun, I do not accept your 3rd point. What Hugh is advocating is a relaxing of the cosmetic standards so that farmers can sell more of what they grow, but at the same time they will then need to plant less, use fewer chemicals (growing less intensively) and therefore make a profit.

Cheap food is something we all think we should have BUT its not that simple its certainly got relatively cheaper over the years.....in the 50s, 60s, even 70s we used a higher proportion of wages on food. We valued food, wasted less and made it go a lot further, we were also a lot slimmer and healthier.

Just ploughing food into the ground because its not pretty has got to stop.

crun Once again I disagree with you. The land can be used for other crops and other purposes.

1) It can be used to grow crops we currently import

2) It can be used to grow crops for industrial uses like biofuels or pharmaceutical products among others.

3) In the right places it can be used to build houses.

That's too simplistic crun

Some of the surplus food does go for animal feed which would continue.

People should be eating more fruit and especially more vegetables instead of the junk they are persuaded to buy by the supermarkets. They wouldn't gain five stone in a year by doing that - they would probably lose some.

Yes, people should be persuaded not to waste food and should stop buying too much but should be persuaded to buy more of the better food than the junk.

The population is growing so, unless there is an increase in the number of farmers, the balance will right itself over the next few years; if farmers go out of business then we will need to start importing more food in the future.

Many people are going hungry in this country and there is therefore an imbalance between food waste and food need which is quite appalling in this day and age.

You sound as if you are very anti-farmers which makes me sad. I don't think many people appreciate just how hard they work to produce the food that arrives on the supermarket shelves or in the markets - it doesn't appear by magic. And how little profit there is in farming these days. The farmers do not drive this over-production - it is the supermarkets and their greedy bosses that have caused this situation. The farmers are at their mercy. The supermarket bosses do need to be brought to task, even if laws have to be brought in to do so.

According to the stat on the program, 25% of all the food Britain’s farmers produce is going to waste, in which case there are three, and only three possible scenarios that follow from it:

1. We waste the surplus food.
That’s what’s happening at the moment.

2. We eat the surplus.
In that case every man woman and child in the country will gain five stones a year.

3. We (and consequently the supermarkets) stop buying food we don’t need.
In that case there will be more farmers going out of business like the family in the program, not fewer.

Am I really the only one who can see that for every ugly vegetable or overripe fruit that gets eaten there will be one less pretty one for the farmers to sell, and that if you waste less food you need fewer farmers to produce it?