Our recent report on food waste and poverty – an initiative of the Centre for Food Policy at City University, published by the Food Research Collaboration – highlighted that solutions to food poverty and food waste do not lie in the redistribution of surplus or waste foods by supermarkets to food aid charities.
While it is important that food waste be directed towards human consumption in the first instance, the model whereby we look to this as a solution to food waste is seriously lacking. It also does little to address the long-term issues of food poverty and hunger that can only be addressed by government action to ensure that welfare benefit delays and sanctions do not lead to families seeking aid from food banks and that the gap between income and food costs is closed.
The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee in the UK Parliament has taken evidence from supermarkets and others in the food system on actions to reduce food waste by redistribution to food charities to tackle food poverty. There were discussions about whether the UK should follow the examples of France and Italy in introducing legislation to ensure this happens.
The implications for fresh produce and growers of such proposed redistribution schemes is at least twofold. The first is that such approaches, whether by agreement or legislation, do nothing to tackle overproduction and ensure a fair price to growers at the farmgate. As a result, cosmetic standards will still mean fresh produce is rejected and prices will remain low.
Secondly, if redistribution to food charities by retailers and caterers becomes the norm – whether by allowing tax incentives because it is not being sent to landfill or by what is called Good Samaritan Legislation exempting them from legal liability should their products make the receiver ill – suppliers will have little incentive to control surplus production and consequent waste.
They can continue as normal, over-sourcing and then redirecting waste or surplus to food charities. An ancillary problem, although not for producers, is that many food aid charities are small and operate with limited resources. They therefore may not be in a position to handle and store fresh produce, resulting in waste anyway. They may not feel they are in a position to refuse such offers. Some of the bigger organisations and food banks have the expertise and resources to handle fresh produce, but many do not.
Lasting and real actions are more likely to be found in giving fresh produce producers more robust and certainty in contracts, diminishing cosmetic standards, better consumer demand forecasting and eliminating ‘best before date’ labels and indicators.
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