Claims that up to 30 per cent of the UK’s vegetable crop is not harvested due to visual appearance have been blasted by a government advisor.

Author Brian Wernham, who is currently consulting the government on agile project management, claimed the Institution of Mechanical Engineers’ (IME) Global Food: Waste Not, Want Not report is filled with “zombie statistics” and “factual inaccuracies.”

“The 30 per cent statistic is pure sensationalism based on an old report from 2008 by Waitrose. In fact, only between seven to 13 per cent of vegetables are currently lost by grading losses or supermarket quality control.”

Several retailers including Sainsbury’s and Morrisons have lowered their visual specifications on fruit and veg to support growers after last year’s poor weather conditions. The figures from IME’s report, which also stated that half of the world’s food is currently thrown away, received major coverage in the mainstream media and Wernham now fears that its “fabricated findings” will become widely accepted by the general public.

The report has also been scrutinised by the Fresh Produce Consortium, which has pointed at research carried out by government waste organisation WRAP that shows the level of waste through the fresh produce supply chain is less than 10 per cent.

“The IME report fails to acknowledge fully that suppliers find alternative uses for their products where they do not meet their primary specification,” said Nigel Jenney, chief executive of the FPC.

Meanwhile, Professor Richard Tiffin, director of the University of Reading’s Centre for Food Security, has said the supply chain must react intelligently to tabloid headlines on waste.

He explained: “There is a danger that the process of reducing food waste to acceptable levels may require storage and transport solutions that are themselves unsustainable.”

Topics