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The food waste champion with a blind spot on regulation to prevent food waste

22nd Oct 18 by fb_admin

If this Swedish MEP is so worried about food waste, why is she supporting supermarket pressure to block legislation to address it?

Two years ago we wrote a blog about Anna Maria Corazza Bildt, a Swedish MEP. In many ways, she’s a food waste champion with great credentials – she runs a food waste campaign in Sweden and has contributed to a report on how more efficient food chains can help tackle waste.

But it seems her activism only goes so far – two years ago she was involved in an attept to block a European Parliament declaration calling for the kind of regulation that would really help to tackle food waste: laws preventing large food businesses like supermarkets from using their market power to force farmers to waste food, for example by cancelling their orders at the last minute when they decide they can’t sell it (Feedback’s investigations of these ‘unfair trading practices’ found they were rife in both national and international supply chains). You can find out about some of the ways Unfair Trading Practices both cause food waste and undermine efforts to reduce waste through industry voluntary agreements in the research of the EU project REFRESH.

Despite the best efforts of Corazza Bildt and some of her colleagues in the European People’s Party, the 2016 vote was a landslide, with MEPs calling for action on unfair practices: as we type a draft law to outlaw many of the unfair practices which can cause huge volumes of food waste is on the brink of gong through the final rounds of negotiation by European lawmakers.

But it seems Corazza Bildt and co are at it again – this time trying to delay the progress of the law, which  could mean this law goes back on the shelf, especially with time tight before the next round of European Parliament elections.

This EU law has been welcome by food waste groups, farmers and those who are worried about unfair treatment of farmers in developing countries – the only groups resisting the law, unsurprisingly, are supermarkets and their backers in the European Parliament. We’re so close to real progress on regulating our food supply chain to protect the people who produce our food, it would be a catastrophe if momentum was undermined now.

Now’s the time for a final push to help this law over the finish line, and help farmers waste less food across Europe and beyond. We’re calling on all MEPs, including Anna Maria Corazza Bildt and her colleagues in the European People’s Party, to support this law.

You can read our article from back in 2016 below.


A public outcry sparked the European Parliament to look into investigating unfair trading practices by supermarkets, whose strong market power allows them to cause farmers to waste food. The European Parliament is debating the creation of an EU-coordinated network of national enforcement authorities to prevent unfair trading practices from occuring. Disappointingly, one European Parliament member – who is usually an ally in the fight against food waste – is blocking this much-needed legislation.

The European Parliament is drafting amendments to a report that could determine whether or not Europe will implement legislation to prevent unfair trading practices (UTPs). Previous drafts of the report have highlighted the clear correlation between unfair trading practices and the overproduction and food waste they cause. These previous drafts called for a European framework and effective legislation to prevent UTPs across Europe, acknowledging the inadequacy of voluntary frameworks like the Pan-European Supply Chain Initiative in effectively preventing these issues.

Over a million people have signed Feedback’s petition calling on national leaders to establish authorities to investigate supermarkets’ unfair treatment of suppliers to prevent good food from going to waste because of UTPs.

However, despite widespread support for such legislation, Swedish MEP Anna Maria Corazza Bildt is actively working to block such proposals in the final round of amendments. Corazza Bildt instead wants an industry-led Supply Chain Initiative as a means for preventing UTPs, despite its track record for being ineffective in addressing UTPs and the climate of fear suppliers currently operate under.

amcb
Swedish MEP Anna Maria Corazza Bildt runs a food waste campaign called ‘Basta Till Matsvinnet’

Corazza Bildt continues to lead a personal campaign against food waste. The MEP was also a key contributor to a previous European report focused on developing strategies for a more efficient food chain in the EU in order to avoid food waste. Given this track record, her fight against this legislation is a disappointing departure from the her previous commitments. By blocking recommendations for crucial legislation that would contribute significantly to reducing food waste in Europe’s food chain, she betrays her legacy of incisive work on the intersection of food waste and public policy.

Feedback’s research in countries as diverse as Kenya, Guatemala and the UK has demonstrated how large amounts of food is wasted as a result of unfair trading practices by European retailers. Last minute order cancellations and retrospective amendments to supply agreements often leave farmers with no secondary markets on which to sell their produce. When this happens the farmers receive no compensation and are forced to dump their produce.

Preventative legislation against UTPs would protect suppliers, in particular farmers, who currently face uncertain and risky trading conditions in order to supply products to Europe’s major retailers. Under such legislation, European retailers would risk penalties and fines for malpractice towards their suppliers, as they do under legislation empowering the UK’s Groceries Code Adjudicator (GCA). Crucially, the European legislation would create a level playing field across the single market to ensure that effective regulation is in place across European borders to protect suppliers and ultimately consumers as well.

Feedback are calling on Anna Maria Corazza Bildt to lead the European People’s Party in supporting legislative measures to prevent unfair trading practices in Europe by voting for an EU-coordinated network of national-level enforcers. Anna Maria Corazza Bildt has the opportunity on the 21st April to vote in favour of legislation and in doing so will be following a number of other cross-party MEPs.

To members of the European People’s Party: Preventing UTPs in Europe’s food supply chain is one of the most effective ways to curtail overproduction and the wastage of good food and finite agricultural resources. We call on you to take decisive action to support legislation to establish a EU-coordinated network of national-level enforcers to prevent unfair trading practices.

The vote on the 21st April is an opportunity for the European Parliament to stop the European Commission dragging its heels with regards to taking action against UTPs and food waste and Feedback look to the entire European Parliament to push for effective legislation.

__________________________________________________________

@European citizens: want to take action? Tweet this article at MEPs from #EPP (European People’s Party) and make them know that you want a fairer food supply chain.

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Thoughts on Wales’ target to halve food waste by 2025

13th Sep 17 by fb_admin

As was widely reported recently, Wales has put forward a target to halve food waste by 2025. This ambitious target trumps commitments made by the EU earlier in the year and the US to do the same by 2030. A report published by The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee (EFRA) this year recommended that England set a national target to reduce food waste. At Feedback, we supported this recommendation and further called for the target to be legally binding.

Those familiar with Welsh environmental policy will not be surprised by their ambition, with Wales enjoying the second highest recycling rate in Europe and third highest world-wide. In fact, Wales has exceeded its target to reach a 64% recycling rate by 2020 four years early. Wales’ track record on environmental issues mean that this target should be both taken seriously, and commended.

There are concerns however: primarily that this target is not legally-binding, with the obvious risk that as time goes on political commitment to achieving the target wanes.

However, the target is based on reliable data using 2006/7 levels as a baseline. Figures from WRAP Cymru show that between 2009 and 2015, food thrown out within households decreased by 12%. This is highly attributable to the implementation of food waste caddies supplied to households with regular collections within all of Wales’ local authorities.

As Feedback have consistently argued  – we need to think beyond household bins to solve food waste. If this goal is to be achieved, serious consideration must be given to the vast amount of food waste which occurs throughout the supply chain particularly that caused by powerful players such as the supermarkets

How will Wales achieve this ambitious target?

 

Promotional campaigns to encourage food recycling at home, doggy bag schemes introduced to reduce food waste within restaurants, local public food recycling points and investment in waste-to-energy anaerobic digestion (AD) have all been highlighted as impending strategies. Notably absent is any mention of the role the supermarkets will have to play in terms of relaxing cosmetic standards within their purchasing practises or of taking responsibility for the redistribution of surplus food going to waste within their stores.

Anaerobic digestion (AD) has been gaining increasing interest and may be seen as an effective food waste management strategy due to the generation of electricity and absence of CO2 emissions it offers. However, as the food waste pyramid illustrates, AD should only be considered when food is not fit for consumption by humans or livestock.

 Food for thought…

 

The target set by Wales certainly should be applauded for its pragmatism and ambition. What is most important to consider is how this target will be met. It is imperative that the high target set does not in fact encourage less sustainable yet more empirically effective waste management strategies such as (AD) in favour of those which realise the original purpose of food – to nourish!

What is required is a systemic change in the food system towards a circular model, like that put forward by Feedback, which reconsiders what ‘waste’ is and allows for the actual value of ‘waste’ to be understood. ‘Waste’ can then be managed through ‘best use loops’ so that humans, animals and soil, in that order, can benefit from extracting the full potential of ‘waste’ which in turn reduces the need for an increase in food production. Food waste is a symptom of our broken food system – to end food waste, we have to build a better one.

 

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Why households alone can’t fix the food waste problem

24th Aug 17 by Christina O'Sullivan

Waste is a symptom of our broken food system

Click here to listen to an audio recording of this blog

It’s easy to assume that the bulk of the British food waste problem lies in household bins. The most recent figures suggest that a whopping 71% of food waste, post-farm gate, occurs at the household level. If this is true, then surely the food waste movement should be focusing its efforts solely on household food waste.

So why does Feedback keep banging on about supermarkets? Because it really isn’t that simple. Let’s figure out why.

We’ll show you ours if you show us yours…

The figure above, as convincing as it sounds that 71% of food waste stems from households, comes from WRAP’s detailed study of household food waste which is compared with data provided by the supermarkets and other up-stream actors in the food industry.

The trouble is that no one really knows how accurate most of that industry data is because, at present, only Sainsbury’s and Tesco release their food waste data to the public and only Tesco show figures on supply chain waste – the waste that occurs up-stream at the level of farms and other suppliers. None of these sources of data include the waste of fish at sea or the waste generated in production overseas. In contrast to this, our research has consistently shown that suppliers in the UK and overseas waste a colossal amount of food because of supermarket practices such as strict cosmetic specifications and last-minute order cancellations.

Our gleaning network, which rescues food from being wasted on farms, last year alone rescued over 1 million portions of fruit and veg. WRAP estimates that 3 million tonnes of food are being wasted on farms in the UK every year, but these estimates are based on very poor quality data, to the extent that WRAP no longer uses this probable under-estimate.

How can we make conclusions on the source of the UK’s food waste problem with inaccurate data? The answer is we can’t, which is why we call on supermarkets to be transparent on their food waste across the supply chain.

Eternal abundance

If you’re like 95% of the UK population, the likelihood is that you visited one of the big four supermarkets at some point this week. Supermarkets dominate our experience of buying food, and their marketing practices have a bigger influence on what and how we buy and use food than you might think. Take their displays of fruit and veg, typically positioned near the entrance to the supermarket or the strategy of stocking the aisles with far more food than will be bought at any one time, giving the illusion of an endless abundance of food.

When supermarkets first opened in the UK people were afraid to pick up items and put them in their trolley for fear of being told off. Now we have the opposite problem; we can’t stop ourselves from picking stuff up! Supermarket marketing strategies cause us to over-spend and their own buying policies force farmers to overproduce.

So, food waste at home caused by buying more than you can get through – exacerbated by supermarket promotions and deals – is not a problem that occurs in a vacuum. Yes, we should all eat what we buy and only buy what we’ll eat, but we should also call on our supermarkets to take responsibility for their part in this waste equation.

We are all products of our environment and supermarkets have worked hard and poured money into developing an environment that indirectly encourages us to waste food. To tackle the consumer food waste issue, supermarkets should fund consumer waste analyses based on where people shop to highlight what supermarket policies reduce waste and which drive it. The harsh reality here is that, in-order-to achieve the implementation of these kind of initiatives to help reduce waste, external pressure will need to be put on supermarkets who ultimately benefit financially from over-purchasing and the inevitable associated food waste which comes as a result. That’s why we keep banging on about Supermarkets!

Waste is a symptom of our broken food system

Ultimately to truly solve the food waste problem, the way we buy food will have to undergo a radical makeover. Even Tesco, who has made a very public commitment to food waste transparency and reduction, saw its food waste tonnage actually increase last year year, coming to a staggering total of 59,400 tonnes of food that was never eaten. Why does waste keep going up even though Tesco are throwing money and resources at the problem?

The answer lies in our current food system, in which waste is a symptom of overproduction and where no single actor takes responsibility for the amount of waste resulting from this unsustainable system. You cannot uncouple the current supermarket model from waste, this is evident from the limited success of food waste initiatives by supermarkets with WRAP’s study showing that retailers have only managed to reduce their food waste by 15% from 2007 to 2015.

Our new model for a more sustainable food system emphasizes the need for more holistic thinking where, at both retail and consumption stage, food ‘waste’ is recognized for its true value, and can still realise its primary purpose – to be consumed – through innovative redistribution. This recovery of surplus (as well as avoiding overproduction in the first place) creates closed loops within the food system that are vital to ultimately tackling the status quo.

The current supermarket model can’t exist without waste. Pragmatism is required from supermarkets in order to both create a system that generates less waste and to create an environment that encourages consumers to do the same.

 

Please help us put pressure on supermarkets by sharing on Twitter here.

 

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WHERE’S THE UK’S FIRST ZERO WASTE SUPERMARKET?

4th Oct 16 by fb_admin

4th October 2016

gpwdjjmv_400x400Feedback’s Campaign and Research Manager Edd Colbert reflects on recent changes in the UK’s food waste landscape.


It’s been a busy few weeks for food waste in the UK, with the publication of The Evening Standard’s investigation into supermarket waste; Sainsbury’s publishing some of its food waste data; a wealth of organisations calling on the UK Government for action on waste; and a new group of companies signing up to the Courtauld Commitment. Yet what really shocked me was the fanfare of news articles celebrating what has been dubbed ‘The UK’s First Food Waste Supermarket’.

This ‘food waste supermarket’ is the latest project of The Real Junk Food Project (TRJFP). TRJFP started out as a pay-as-you-feel café serving food that would have gone to waste in Armley, Leeds. I first met Adam Smith, the project’s founder, in 2014 shortly before becoming a co-director of the project. Since leaving the project, it has grown from strength to strength and now represents an international network of anti-food waste projects.

One such project is the brilliant Fuel for Schools program in Leeds, which uses surplus food to feed hundreds of school children breakfast to combat food poverty and malnutrition. The ‘food waste supermarket’ is a warehouse in which food is stored for effective distribution; and in true TRJFP fashion, it has been opened up to be accessed by all to make sure those living in food poverty are not marginalised. Everyone is welcome to do their weekly shop and are encouraged to pay as they feel, whether that is financially or in kind. Yet as Adam told me on the phone recently, “this isn’t a supermarket, this is explicitly anti-supermarket”.

Even if we can call this warehouse a supermarket, doesn’t it seem strange that the UK’s media headlines are celebrating the fact that the UK wastes enough food to fill a supermarket?

What the UK really needs right now is its first Zero Waste Supermarket.

A zero food waste supermarket publicly measures and reports how much food it wastes in its store and distribution centre operations, as well as throughout its supply chain.

A zero food waste supermarket prioritises prevention of waste throughout its operations and supply chain. It commits to reducing food waste on farms and other stages of its supply chain, for example through the relaxation of strict cosmetic specifications that judge food on what it looks like, rather than its taste or nutritional value.

A zero food waste supermarket understands that food waste is a symptom of overproduction. It works to create fair contractual relationships with its suppliers to prevent overproduction as a result of suppliers trying to insure themselves against last minute order cancellations and unpredictable order forecasting.

A zero food waste supermarket recognises that redistribution is a short-term measure to ensure all food that is grown is eaten by people, but that ultimately it is responsible for minimising how much ‘surplus’ food it encourages to be grown, harvested, packaged, transported and sold.

A zero food waste supermarket only sends truly unavoidable food waste to management processes such as anaerobic digestion.

A zero food waste supermarket would present a challenge to all retailers to take greater action to prevent food waste and would be truly worthy of newspaper headlines.

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Evening Standard Publishes Food Waste Investigation

19th Sep 16 by fb_admin

19/09/2016

Supermarkets are under pressure to accelerate action to prevent good food going to waste as the Evening Standard launches a major investigation into food waste this week.

Sainsbury’s is the second British supermarket to publish data on the amount of food it wastes in its stores, reporting to waste 35,832 tonnes per year. Last year Tesco published its in-store data after years of campaigning pressure from Feedback, and recently CEO David Lewis called on other retailers to follow their lead.

Feedback expose food waste in supermarket bins with the Evening Standard.
Feedback expose food waste in supermarket bins with the Evening Standard.

Feedback are pleased to see that Sainsbury’s has published its food waste data for the first time today but there’s still much work to be done. Firstly, Sainsbury’s have only published data on the amount of food waste generated in their stores. Whilst this is an important first step for retailers to manage and reduce their food waste, it does not include the much more significant amount of food waste generated in the retailer’s supply chain caused by cosmetic specifications, last minute order cancellations and unpredictable forecasting. Secondly,Sainsbury’s food waste data has not been audited by a third party, unlike its rival Tesco, putting the validity of this data in question.

Edd Colbert, Campaign and Research Manager at Feedback, says “Supermarkets are beginning to feel the pressure of the global food waste movement and have no option but to change their behaviour. The first dominos have fallen with Tesco and Sainsbury’s announcements and over the next year Feedback will be monitoring each of the supermarkets closely to ensure they go beyond ambitious gestures and commit to effective long term actions to prevent food waste.”

Feedback are calling on all UK supermarkets to come clean and publicly report on how much food they waste in their operations and throughout their supply chains. These businesses already have much of this data available as they collectively report on food waste through the Courtauld Commitment, a voluntary industry initiative. This was confirmed today by an anonymous employee from one of big six in the Evening Standard:

“The truth is that every store of every retailer measures their food waste very, very accurately because metrics drives our business. If they tell you otherwise they are being less than honest.”

The Standard’s investigation has largely focused on the amount of surplus food redistributed by each of the major retailers. Sainsbury’s is reported to lead the way with 7.6% of its surplus food actually being redistributed at present whilst Tesco comes second with 4.5%. The rest of the retailers fall even shorter with scores of 3.3% or less. Morrison’s and Lidl have not disclosed any information on how much food they redistribute. This is of particular concern, as Morrison’s declared almost a year ago that it planned to redistribute all of its surplus food after Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s BBC series Hugh’s War On Waste.

Whilst a great deal of attention is being given to redistribution initiatives, it is important to highlight that the amount of food waste generated within supermarket stores is miniscule compared to that which arises in the supply chain. If supermarkets are really serious about putting an end to waste they have to start taking responsibility for the waste they cause upstream by relaxing unnecessary cosmetic specifications, improving forecast accuracy, and putting an end to unfair trading practices.

Have you read the Evening Standard’s food waste story? Do you want to join the movement and help stop good food going to waste? Then sign the food waste pledge here to find how you can get involved.

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Feedback call on UK Government to take action against food waste

19th Sep 16 by fb_admin

Feedback have submitted a response to the British Government’s Environment, Farming and Rural Affairs (EFRA) Committee inquiry on ‘Food Waste in England’. Read the full response here.

parsnips

The inquiry seeks to understand the social, economic and environmental impact of food waste at the household, retail, hospitality and local government levels. Feedback join other organisations, including the NFU and Friends of the Earth in calling for the scope of the inquiry to be wider and include a focus on food waste that arises in the supply chain, particularly at the farm level.

Disproportionate attention has been paid to food waste at the household level in England since the launch of the Waste Strategy in 2007. While this has led to significant reductions, primarily through the work of the Love Food Hate Waste campaign,  we believe that efforts to reduce food waste in the supply chain have been left on the side lines for far too long.

Part of the reason supply chain food waste has been neglected in the UK, and indeed at the international level[1], is due to the lack of data available. Farmers and other suppliers in the food system are not sufficiently incentivised to measure their food waste. Instead, waste caused by unfair trading practices such as order cancellations and rejections are something that many businesses just have to swallow, as they fear that complaining out about it could cause them to lose business.  Similarly cosmetic specifications that lead to ‘imperfect’ produce being wasted, has simply become the norm for many suppliers.

In order to seriously tackle food waste in England and across the United Kingdom, Feedback believes that the government must address the lack of transparent data on supply chain food waste and also tackle the current climate of fear in supermarket supply chains.

Beyond taking action to prevent food waste, the British Government must ensure the correct use of the food waste hierarchy is implemented by food businesses by reviewing the current ban on feeding catering waste to non-ruminant livestock to allow the development of an economic and robustly monitored food to feed industry, and by removing subsidies that prioritise waste management over waste prevention.

Feedback consider that legislation in the following five areas is necessary to effectively reduce food waste in England:

  • A UK national food waste reduction target

Alongside Scotland, the UK government should set a target for Northern Ireland, Wales, Scotland and England to halve food waste across the supply chain (including pre retail food waste) by 2030, in line with the United Nations Sustainable Development (UNSDG) Goal 12.3 to halve food waste globally by 2030.

  • Mandatory industry food waste reporting

The UK government should introduce legislation that makes public reporting of food waste data mandatory for food businesses over a particular size, including data on supply chains.  Making this data publicly available would increase competition between businesses generating positive results for consumers, retailers and suppliers.

  • Strengthening the remit of the Groceries Code Adjudicator (GCA)

The GCA is limited to regulating the relationship between retailers and their direct (first-tier) suppliers meaning that indirect suppliers are not protected from unfair trading practices (UTPs) that can cause overproduction and food waste. Feedback recommend that the GCA have their remit extended in order to protect indirect suppliers in the same way that direct suppliers are protected.

  • Removal of subsidies that incentivise sending edible food to anaerobic digestion

To ensure food waste prevention efforts take priority over anaerobic digestion (AD), in line with the food waste hierarchy, Feedback advocate that Renewables Obligation Certificates (ROCs) are only available for the AD of non-edible food waste that is otherwise destined for landfill, and not any food waste that could be directed further up the hierarchy (as is the case with the Renewable Heat Initiative).

  • Revision of the ban on feeding catering waste to non-ruminant livestock

Feedback advocates the use of regulated, centralized, sophisticated catering waste treatment systems to ensure food waste can safely be used in feed for non-ruminants (pigs and chickens). Legislation is currently blocking such systems from being created that could simultaneously reduce food waste, create jobs, and significantly improve the environmental impact of meat production.

[1] The UN Sustainable Development Goal 12.3 seeks to halve food waste globally by 2030 at the household and retail level, whilst recommending efforts should also be made to reduce supply chain waste albeit without a measurable reduction target.

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Everyone agrees that food waste is a scandal; now citizens must hold the industry accountable

8th Aug 16 by fb_admin

Hear ye, hear ye: Feedback’s Managing Director Niki Charalampopoulou is on Huffington Post’s RECLAIM front page today (8 August 2016) as a guest contributor.

Niki notes that food waste is an unusual dilemma in that there are no clear opponents of reducing food waste — and that it is for this reason that it takes a concerted effort to hold every stakeholder accountable, from policymakers to supermarkets and the greater food industry in general.

Feedback has been doing this since our founding in 2009. Niki specifically highlights the pledge we have asked people to sign this year to take #FoodWaste #OffTheMenu. Indeed, all of our campaigns centre on holding industry to account.

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Tell American supermarkets to stop using confusing date labels that cause food waste

20th Jul 16 by fb_admin

In building our Feeding the 5000 campaign in the US, we developed a four-course menu of actions to take #FoodWaste #OffTheMenu. Our first course in this pledge is for simple date labels that don’t confuse people into throwing away food unnecessarily. On Monday July 18, we launched a petition to make this happen in the US, as part of Huffington Post’s #Reclaim campaign.

The one missing ingredient is a resounding public voice creating a mandate for this common-sense reform.

The US has seen a lot of noise on date label reform lately. See this article in the Economist, this video by the Harvard Food Law and Policy Clinic, and this article about our petition in Huffington Post. In addition to this increased awareness, concrete action is in the works on various fronts:

– Walmart has asked its private brand suppliers to adopt a standardized date label for all foods that do not require date labels for safety reasons.

– There are moves to pass federal legislation on this bipartisan issue of standardizing date labels to clear up the confusion

– Behind the scenes, the two key industry groups on this issue – the Grocery Manufacturers Association and the Food Marketing Institute – have organized a working group with experts from manufacturing and retail companies to develop a voluntary industry standard for date labels.

We’re excited by all this noise and action. The one missing ingredient is a resounding public voice creating a mandate for this common-sense reform. Our hope is that this petition helps create this public mandate.

Help us promote the petition by tweeting

We’ve put together some sample tweets:

Supermarkets’ confusing date labels cause #FoodWaste. Take it #OffTheMenu with simpler #DateLabels change.org/datelabels

Sell by, best before, use by, consume by — no one agrees what these phrases mean. Reduce #FoodWaste, confusion change.org/datelabels

Support @Feedbackorg #reclaim petition calling for simpler #DateLabels to reduce #FoodWaste change.org/datelabels

Please also tweet @ the supermarkets themselves, especially if you are their customer:

What is the weirdest, silliest date labels that you can find?

Seen an especially weird, silly, or downright comical date label? Please email it to us or hit us up on instagram or Twitter.

But most importantly, please share and sign the petition

Petition sign now

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Brexit Government urged to take control of food, farming and fisheries for public good

14th Jul 16 by fb_admin

Feedback have signed a letter alongside 83 other organisations to David Davis and Theresa May to stress the important implications of Brexit on food and farming.

Read the letter here.

With many of the UK’s food and farming policies and subsidies being defined at EU level, the UK government now has an opportunity to reshape these to ensure that taxpayers money is spent for public good.

Organisations representing the health and long-term interests of millions of British citizens have called on government to adopt common-sense food, farming and fishing policies that are good for jobs, health and the environment, when they plan for the UK’s exit from the European Union.

Concerns are expressed in a letter to Prime Minister Theresa May and David Davis MP, the Minister appointed to oversee a new Unit advising the Government and PM on the post EU Referendum strategy. The letter, co-signed by over 80 food, farming, fair trade, poverty, animal welfare, wildlife and environmental organisations, argues that good food, farming and fishing policies must be central to any post EU Referendum strategy for the UK.

The organisations point out that better food, farming and trade policies can help to cut greenhouse gas emissions from farming and food industries by 80% by 2050, and promote healthier diets to combat heart disease, cancers, diabetes and obesity, saving the NHS, and ultimately taxpayers millions. Such policies can also support a vibrant and diverse economy, supporting good jobs and working conditions, in the UK and overseas. Further, the UK could prioritise ethical and sustainable production methods, improved animal welfare, more farmland and marine wildlife, a healthy future for bees and other pollinators, as well as enhancing the beauty of the countryside and protecting the environment, whilst also providing a safe and traceable food supply.

Kath Dalmeny, head of Sustain, an alliance of food and farming organisations,  who coordinated the letter, said: “The British public has given no mandate for a reduction in food and farming standards, a weakening of protection for nature, nor a reversal of the UK’s commitment to lifting millions of the poorest people in the world out of poverty through trade. We are seriously concerned that such vital considerations may be over-run by a drive for new trade deals at any cost.”

The full letter can be read online here.

Organisations that have signed the letter include:

Action on Sugar, Agricultural Christian Fellowship, Alexandra Rose Charity, All Party Parliamentary Group: Agroecology, All Party Parliamentary Group: School Food, Alliance to Save Our Antibiotics, Baby Milk Action, Banana Link, Belfast Food Network, Beyond GM, Biodynamic Association, Blood Pressure UK, Campaign for the Protection of Rural England, Concern Universal, Consensus Action on Salt and Health, Compassion in World Farming, Eating Better Alliance, Econexus, Environmentalists for Europe, Faculty of General Dental Practice (UK), Royal College of Surgeons, Faculty of Public Health, Fairtrade Foundation, Family Farmers’ Association, Federation of City Farms &Community Gardens, Feedback, First Steps Nutrition Trust, Food Ethics Council, Food Foundation, Food Matters, Food Research Collaboration, City University, Food Systems Academy, Forum for the Future, Friends of the Earth , Fun Kitchen, Future Sustainability, Garden Organic, Global Justice Now, GM Freeze, Greenpeace, Green Party of England and Wales, Harper Adams University (Food Science & Agri-Food Supply Chain Management), Health Equalities Group, Institute for Food, Brain and Behaviour, Institute of Health Promotion and Education, International Pole & Line Foundation, Keep Britain Tidy, Landworkers Alliance, London Food Board, Low Impact Fishers of Europe (LIFE), New Under Ten Fishermen’s Association , Magic Breakfast, Marine Conservation Society (MCS), National Obesity Forum, New Economics Foundation, Nourish Scotland, Organic Growers Alliance, Organic Research Centre, Organic Trade Board, Pasture Fed Livestock Association, Pesticides Action Network UK, Real Farming Trust, Royal Academy of Culinary Arts, School of Artisan Food, School Food Matters, Schumacher College at Dartington Hall Trust, Scottish Cancer Prevention Network, Scottish Crofting Federation, Send a Cow, Soil Association, Soil Association Scotland, Sole of Discretion, Slow Food in the UK, Sugarwise, Sustain: The alliance for better food and farming, Sustainable Food Cities Network, Sustainable Food Trust, Traidcraft, UK Food Group, UK Health Forum, Unite the Union, UNISON, University of Cardiff, Geography & Planning & Development, War on Want, Wildlife Trusts.

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Tesco CEO calls on retailers to release food waste data

17th Jun 16 by fb_admin

In a speech yesterday at the Global Summit of the Consumer Goods Forum, Tesco CEO Dave Lewis called for other retailers to follow Tesco’s example and openly publish their food waste data.

In 2013, Tesco responded to pressure by Feedback’s longstanding campaign and our direct challenge to the retailer and published third party audited figures of how much food it wastes in its UK operations as well as identifying food waste hot spots in its supply chain.

Disappointingly, none of the other retailers has taken up our challenge to follow suit. Retailers continue to report their food waste data secretively, with the British Retail Consortium only publishing an annual aggregate figure for the whole industry, which does not include data on supply chain food waste.

Any retailer that is serious about tackling food waste can no longer afford to be secretive about how much they waste.

In the latest voluntary agreement by the food industry to tackle food waste, known as the Courtauld Commitment 2025, we were disappointed to see that retailers had only agreed to publish one aggregate food waste figure for the whole industry instead of reporting company-specific food waste figures. Noting this move by Tesco, a signatory of the commitment, we wrote: “Other retailers should follow suit and openly publish how much food they individually waste so they can be held accountable to public scrutiny and begin a race to the top to prove which supermarket is least wasteful.”

Supermarkets play a pivotal role in the food supply chain. They drive food waste upstream by imposing strict cosmetic standards on suppliers and by using outsize market power over suppliers that encourage overproduction in order to meet last-minute order changes. Supermarkets also cause consumer food waste through portion sizing and marketing techniques that cause consumers to buy more than they use.

We can only change behaviour when we measure it accurately and transparently. This logic applies to entities other than supermarkets, too, such as individual countries. For this reason, we have formed a coalition with eight other environmental groups asking the EU to standardise food waste measurement across member states.

Partly because supermarkets consistently refuse to be forthright about their food waste, we worked with Kerry McCarthy MP on a food waste reduction bill that included the requirement of large supermarkets and manufacturers to publish and transparently report their food waste across their supply chains. (Read more here.)

The government shelved the bill, but the need to push supermarkets on this issue remains. This is a wake up call for the retailer industry in the UK and around the world. Any retailer that is serious about tackling food waste can no longer afford to be secretive about how much they waste.

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European Parliament calls for action to tackle unfair trading practices

8th Jun 16 by fb_admin

More protection for farmers urged as EU resolution calls for legislation to cut down on abuse of power within the food supply chain

07/06/2016

 

Yesterday morning, Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) sent a clear message to the EU Commission to take immediate action and enact  EU-wide legislation that protects farmers and food suppliers who are  mistreated by supermarkets’ unfair trading practices (“UTPs”).

The resolution (approved by 600 votes to 48) calls on the Commission to establish a network of enforcement authorities to address power imbalances in the food supply chain that generate increased risk and uncertainty for suppliers and can lead to overproduction and food waste.

 

Europe’s food supply chain suffers from endemic and persistent problems from UTPs, with suppliers subjected to a range of issues including delayed payments, sudden and unjustified order cancellations, forced involvement in promotions and imposed charges for fictitious services.

 

farmer1update

Feedback’s research in Kenya has shown how farmers who export their produce to Europe are forced into cycles of debt when orders are cancelled at the last minute or supply agreements are changed retrospectively. Farmers are often left with no market to sell their food to meaning they are not paid and end up wasting perfectly good produce.

 

The resolution comes after the Commission published a disappointing report earlier this year favouring voluntary agreements to prevent UTPs over legislative measures. In its report the Commission stated that the industry-led Supply Chain Initiative (SCI) was a sufficient measure to prevent UTPs.

 

The European Parliament have also criticised the Commission’s preference for the SCI, with MEPs agreeing that the voluntary initiative “cannot be used as an effective tool to combat UTPs” given that it lacks financial penalties and mechanisms to allow for confidential complaints to be made by suppliers. This issue is compounded by the fact that Tesco, despite being a member of the SCI, was recently found guilty by the UK’s Groceries Code Adjudicator (GCA) of using unfair trading practices against suppliers and producers in an attempt to overstake its profit margins.

 

Suppliers currently operate in a ‘climate of fear’, too scared to speak out about against unfair trading practices, and require anonymous complaint systems such as the UK’s GCA in order to speak freely. However, the GCA currently only regulates the relationship between retailers and their direct suppliers, meaning that many suppliers are left without protection. The European Parliament recommend that the GCA should be used as a model enforcer against UTPs, but goes further by recognising that UTPs can occur across the supply chain irrespective of geographical location.

 

Voluntary initiatives such as the SCI and the Supermarkets Code of Practice that preceded the GCA are structurally unsuitable for preventing unfair trading practices. Legislation is necessary to effectively deter retailers from using these practices and to effectively change the behaviour or purchasers within these companies. There is clear public support for this, as a petition started by Feedback calling on national leaders to establish authorities to investigate supermarkets’ unfair treatment of suppliers received over one million signatures last year.

 

“Unfair trading practices exist because they are profitable in the short-term for retailers, yet in the long run they threaten the sustainability of our food system by placing additional pressures on increasingly squeezed suppliers,” said Edd Colbert, Campaign and Research Manager for Feedback, “the call for EU-wide protection against unfair trading practices is a significant step forward in the fight against food waste and Feedback join the European Parliament in demanding that the Commission takes action urgently”

 

Feedback have been working with allies in the European food movement to make sure unfair trading practices are recognised as a major contributor to food waste in the supply chain. As an organisation we have engaged with key policy makers in the Commission and Parliament to put this issue on their agenda to create a fairer food system for all. Read more about Feedback’s Stop Dumping campaign that aims to stop unfair trading practices that lead to good food being wasted here.

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Tesco changes rules on Kenyan green beans to cut food waste

21st Apr 16 by Feedback Team

Campaigning win as Tesco improves wasteful process of 'top and tailing' green beans

After years of public campaigning and direct challenges to its practices, Tesco has announced changes to its rules on Kenyan green beans. From now on, they will stop forcing their suppliers to “top and tail” their produce. Tesco estimates that this change will save more than 135 tonnes of food waste per year. Feedback had uncovered this wasteful practice through its investigations in Kenya in 2013, the findings of which we outlined in a report that we published in 2015. Since our inception, Feedback has publicly campaigned against cosmetic specifications for produce that outgrade outrageously high percentages of nutritious crops. Tesco was no exception, and we directly challenged them to stop their wasteful “topping and tailing” practice.

In the fight to relax cosmetic standards, green beans have been a particularly potent symbol of these standards’ causal link to food waste. Supermarkets like Tesco mandated that suppliers “top and tail” their produce — the idea being to make sure all green beans were the exact same length. Unfortunately, that’s not the way green beans grow, and topping and tailing led to an estimated 30% of the crop being lost before it even arrived in the aisles of British supermarkets.

In 2014, our public campaigning led Tesco to make a change to this system, trimming only one side of the green beans. This change alone saved one supplier whom we interviewed 1/3 of her harvest. We continued working directly with Kenyan farmers over the next two years. We found that cosmetic specifications were often used by retailers and importers as a front for cancelling orders at the last minute, that over 30% of food was being rejected at farm-level, and that exporters reported nearly 50% of produce is rejected before being exported. Our work in Peru has shown similar shocking levels of supply-chain waste driven by importers and retailers’ buying practices.

After years of publicly campaigning on this issue as well as directly challenging Tesco to make this change, we celebrate Tesco’s recent buying policy change as a victory for Kenyan farmers, British consumers, and the environment. Come this May, we host major Feeding the 5000 events in New York City and Washington D.C., where we will be asking US supermarkets to follow Tesco’s lead on this issue. The goal is for retailers to relax cosmetic standards dramatically and use farms’ whole crop. Tesco says it will begin doing this: If there is a surplus, we will work with suppliers to find an outlet – for example, by connecting our growers with our fresh and frozen suppliers for it to be used in foods such as ready meals,” said Tesco Commercial Director for Fresh Food Matt Simister. This should be the norm across all retailer-supplier relationships.

We want all retailers around the world to make simple changes like this to create a more sustainable food system. At the same time, we continue fighting for more just and less wasteful supply chains worldwide. Green beans are just a start.

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Courtauld Statement

15th Mar 16 by fb_admin

Parsnip gleaning 1Today’s announcement of the third phase of the Courtauld Commitment, the UK’s voluntary framework for addressing waste in the food industry, is a welcome step in the fight against food waste in the UK, committing the industry to reducing its food waste by 20% by 2025. The announcement comes after the United Nations established its new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which included a target of halving food waste by 2030.

Whilst the current food waste reduction commitment does not include the colossal amounts of food wasted on UK farms, Courtauld 2025 does include a plan to work on the measurement of pre-farmgate food waste by 2018. Having campaigned on the issue of farm level food waste since 2009, Feedback welcomes this step but more work needs to be done to address waste across the supply chain that the UK’s retailers are ultimately responsible for.

It is clear that when it comes to food waste citizens are fed up with supermarkets’ routine mistreatment of their suppliers and their disregard for ‘ugly’ fruit and vegetables. Over a million people have signed Feedback’s petition calling on national action plans to force supermarkets to reduce their food waste by redistributing surplus food, relaxing cosmetic standards for fruit and vegetables and treating their suppliers more fairly.

courtauldUK households have also been leading the way in reducing waste and have shown just how much is possible, having achieved a 21% reduction in food waste in just seven years between 2007 and 2014. Today’s commitment is a welcome starting point for the industry to start matching this ambition and respond to the overwhelming public demand for action to end waste across our food system.

To really start addressing food waste in their supply chains, retailers must relax cosmetic specifications to ensure more ‘imperfect’ fruit and vegetables reach consumers and that all food grown for them finds a market. They must also end unfair trading practices – cancelling or modifying orders or agreements at the last minute without compensation and at the expense of the farmer. Retailers can achieve this on a voluntary basis by improving forecasting and communications with their suppliers; offering them guaranteed prices and volumes or whole crop purchasing; and stop using cosmetic specifications as an excuse for last minute changes in orders. The Groceries Code Adjudicator has the power to investigate such practices and even fine supermarkets that are found to break competition law by treating their suppliers unfairly.

parsToday’s Courtauld Commitment announcement is a strong statement of intent from the food industry with a welcome emphasis on collaboration. But there is clearly plenty of room for competition to raise the ambition for action against food waste. Retailers continue to report their food waste figures in an untransparent way by publishing one aggregate food waste figure for the whole industry. However, Tesco – one of the Commitment’s signatories – responded to pressure by Feedback’s campaigning  by publishing third party audited figures of how much food it wastes in its UK operations as well as identifying food waste hot spots in its supply chain. Crucially, other retailers should follow suit and openly publish how much food they individually waste so they can be held accountable to public scrutiny and begin a race to the top to prove which supermarket is least wasteful.

The UK wastes more food than any other country in Europe but it’s also leading the way working on the solutions to tackle the problem. The rest of the world will be looking to the UK as a leader to learn from its lessons in dealing with waste to achieve the SDG goal of halving food waste by 2030. It is therefore crucial  that action in the UK is up to the task and that the industry accountable to its promises.

 

 

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Feedback and FoodCycle are partnering!

15th Mar 16 by fb_admin

from farm to forkWe have been sitting on this for a little while, so we are absolutely over the moon to officially announce we are teaming up with FoodCycle on the new From Farm to Fork project.

Together the programme will train over 4,000 young people to reclaim surplus food through gleaning and to cook this food for vulnerable people.

Our Bright Future

The initiative, funded by the Big Lottery Fund’s ‘Our Bright Future’ programme, will support 18-24 year olds to get involved and make a difference in their local area.

Through Feedback’s Gleaning Network, young people will collect some of the thousands of tonnes of fresh fruit and vegetables that are wasted on farms every year across the UK because they do not meet strict cosmetic standards.

Young people then volunteer with FoodCycle, a national charity that uses surplus food to cook three-course nutritious tasty meals for people at risk of food poverty and loneliness. Volunteers and guests sit down together to share a meal – and for many guests, this is the one chance they have each week to eat with and have a conversation with others.

foodcycleWho is FoodCycle and what do they do?

FoodCycle runs volunteer-powered community projects across the UK – all working to reduce food poverty and social isolation by serving tasty, nutritious meals to vulnerable people. The charity combines volunteers, surplus food and spare kitchen spaces to create tasty, nutritious meals for people at risk of food poverty and social isolation. With 24 projects across the UK now, FoodCycle operates under the simple idea that food waste and food poverty should not coexist.

Since starting cooking in May 2009, FoodCycles’ incredible volunteers have served over 125,000 meals made using over 146,000kg of surplus food – the equivalent saving of 657,000kg CO2 emissions. Find out more about FoodCycle on their website.

Sounds amazing! How can I get involved?

Are you aged 18-24 and looking to make a difference? Through From Farm to Fork, you will develop important skills, reconnect with farmers and the countryside, create positive social and environmental change and play an important role in supporting your local community. Stay tuned as we’ll be updating our Facebook page and this space with more details. secondary_vert__nostrap_rgb

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Food Waste on the Cover of National Geographic – What would paddington bear say?

10th Feb 16 by fb_admin
Tristram with Tangelo
Tristram Stuart with 1000-tonne heap of rotting Tangelo.

Food waste is on the march cover of the world-renowned National Geographic magazine. After visiting food producers in Peru, Feedback founder Tristram Stuart found this 1000-tonne heap of delcious Tangelo – a kind of ultra-juicy tangerine – rotting in the desert. So, what would Paddington Bear have to say?

Paddington could have made an awful lot of his favourite marmalade, but the producer of this citrus crop routinely wastes over a thousand tonnes of fresh fruit and vegetables even while 3.6 million of his compatriots are malnourished. It’s not his fault that so much food is wasted – so who’s responsibility is it?

IMG_2948
Can you spot the blemish?

Feedback has so far conducted research trips to Kenya, Colombia, Guatemala and Costa Rica: in most of these locations, producers growing for export regularly waste between 10 and 50% of their harvests thanks to the unfair and unnecessary policies of powerful European and American buyers. In the case of these oranges they were being wasted because of minor unavoidable skin blemishes that mean they fail European supermarkets’ ultra-strict cosmetic standards. Can hardly see the blemish? That is the point: it’s nearly invisible. The fruit on the inside is perfectly good; supermarkets could sell it to willing consumers; but instead, anything that the local markets in Peru can’t absorb, simply goes to waste.

It doesn’t need to be this way: if supermarkets relaxed their standards, and helped their producers find other less fussy buyers, and the remainder were donated to local charities, there wouldn’t be anything like this kind of waste. Importers often try to wriggle out of paying for produce by claiming it failed to meet cosmetic standards, when in reality the reason they are cancelling the order is because they’ve failed to find a market for it themselves, or sometimes it’s just a fraudulent way of exploiting relatively powerless suppliers in far-off countries. Feedback has already shown it’s possible to design waste out of these systems, when supermarkets take responsibility for the waste they cause. If you want supermarkets to Stop Dumping waste on their suppliers, sign up to our Stop Dumping campaign.

Needless to say, while Tristram was in Lima he saved a token few hundred kilos of food from going to waste and with that brought together a range of local partners (and an array of local and international media) to celebrate the delicious solutions to food waste at Lima’s second ever Disco Sopa. Dozens of volunteers came together to chop and prepare an absolutely mouth-watering feast under the awe-inspiring guidance of top Lima chef Palmiro Ocampo. With the collaboration of of Lia Celi Castro, General Manager of Banco de Alimentos Peru (the Peruvian Food Bank) a group of local orphans joined in the food prep, including one young trainee chef, and they took away enough quality food to feed a couple of hundred orphans – and the contact details of farmers willing to donate tonnes more in the future. Tristram also organised a meeting in Parliament between MP Jaime Delgado and Managing Director of the Peru Food Bank to discuss support for the food bank’s campaign to change the tax regime around donations to stop the perverse incentive to destroy that exists at the moment.

A massive thank you to Jean Tromme and Alejandra Baruch, the organisers of the Mistura & Qaray food festival, who first invited Tristram to Peru – thus making possible a trip that became much more than just giving a talk.

Read the National Geographic article here.

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Disappointing EC Report into Unfair Trading Practices Ignores Farmers, Businesses and Consumers

5th Feb 16 by fb_admin
Rejected beans dumped on a Kenyan farm

A new European Commission (EC) report into unfair trading practices in the food supply chain published on 29/1 falls short in calling for mandatory action to ensure food suppliers such as farmers and small businesses are protected against abusive trade practices. The report comes off the heels of a recent UK Grocery Code Adjudicator (GCA) investigation that found Tesco guilty of of employing unfair trading practices by knowingly delaying payments to suppliers.

The EC report entitled, “Unfair Business-To-Business Trading Practices (UTPs) in the Food Supply Chain” is being described as a ‘missed opportunity’ by trade and food campaigners.  Rather than take the lead in stopping abusive business practices that impact many hardworking farmers, workers and businesses in Europe and beyond, the EC has passed responsibility to a voluntary initiative set up by the private sector and to EU Member States – known as the Supply Chain Initiative (SCI).

Feedback have been campaigning on this issue alongside organisations like TraidCraft and Fair Trade Advocacy Office, who are part of the Make Fruit Fair consortium. Fiona Gooch, Traidcraft Senior Policy Adviser said: “Just earlier this week, UK supermarket watchdog the Groceries Code Adjudicator found Tesco guilty of consistently under-paying suppliers or paying late in order to artificially inflate their profits. Tesco operates across Europe and their early membership of the voluntary Supply Chain Initiative did not deter these outrageous practices. Market information suggests that it is likely that other retailers have acted in a similar way to remain competitive. Inaction by the European Commission leaves suppliers exposed to unfair trading practices that include late payments, unilateral changes to contracts and the unfair shifting of risk onto suppliers.”

“Research shows that when supermarkets dump risk onto their suppliers in the form of delayed payments or additional costs, these risks are often passed on down the supply chain. This can ultimately lead to the exploitation of workers and producers in developing countries. For consumers, the effect of cut corners is less product innovation and a greater risk of things like the horsemeat scandal happening again.”

Feedback’s own investigations in countries like Kenya, Guatemala and Peru have uncovered how unfair trading practices practiced by retailers and their direct suppliers often have significant impacts on farmers in the Global South. When orders are cancelled at the last minute, or supply agreements are varied retrospectively farmers are often left with no market to sell their food to. Instead much of the food is wasted, and the farmers don’t get paid. Unfair trading practices like this are making it increasingly difficult for farmers to invest in their businesses as many are pushed into cycles of debt just so that they can pay their workers.

Rather than simply encouraging some improvements in the SCI, the EC should be taking concrete measures to protect indirect suppliers from gross abuses like last minute order cancellations. In order to effectively reduce UTPs we need a European directive to establish a minimum standard for enforcement bodies like the Groceries Code Adjudicator across Europe. These standards should include:

The ability for enforcers to initiate investigations to identify abuses within the supply chain and setting up anonymous complaints procedures;

Coordinated enforcement across the EU to discourage offenders from moving their purchasing department to low-enforcement countries to continue with UTPs;

The scope of enforcement should cover entire supply chain both inside Europe and overseas, from the sourcing of raw materials, to intermediate goods and the assembling of the final products and retailing. Access to complaint procedures must be made fully available to overseas suppliers, both indirect and direct;

Financial sanctions should be posed in the case of UTPs. Income generated from these sanctions should be ring-fenced to provide compensation to claimants for the financial losses incurred as result of the UTP.

—————————————————————————————————————————————————–

The GCA currently oversees the relationship between UK retailers and their direct suppliers. Feedback is part of the Groceries Code Action Network in the UK which is campaigning for the remit of this office to be extended to ensure protection for indirect suppliers.

The GCA is a landmark piece of legislation that was established to prevent unfair trading practices in the UK’s grocery sector. Crucially, the GCA and the code it oversees were created as a result of the inefficiency of a preceding voluntary code. The recent investigation by the GCA into Tesco’s mistreatment of its suppliers proves just how important this office is in uncovering and in due course preventing unfair trading practices from occurring.

The European Commission should learn from the UK’s experience with voluntary agreements and should move toward establishing legislative measures to prevent unfair trading practices, rather than solely relying on the SCI.

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Tristram Stuart Just Joined an Exciting New Food Waste Fighting Coalition 

21st Jan 16 by fb_admin

Today at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Feedback Founder Tristram Stuart joined Champions 12.3 – a powerful new coalition of food waste fighters inspiring and leading action to reduce food waste around the globe.

Champions 12.3 aims to speed up action on meeting UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Target 12.3, which specifically seeks to halve per capita food waste and reduce food losses by 2030.  Having first proposed a 50% reduction target for food waste in his 2009 book, Waste: Uncovering the Global Food Waste Scandal, Tristram thinks:

“It is immensely satisfying that the global outcry against food waste, echoing throughout the supply chain, from farmers down to citizens, has now been amplified and crystallised by the United Nations in the framework of the Sustainable Development Goals. It is ambitious; it will be challenging but achievable; above all else, if we strive to work together, we can make the solutions to this colossal problem delicious and nutritious, helping to feed the world and save the planet in the one swoop.”

The coalition brings together an array of government ministers, global institution executives, civil society leaders and 30 CEOs. Champions 12.3 has an inspiring line-up of leaders such as:

Achim Steiner –Executive Director, United Nations Environment Programme

Eva Kjer Hansen – Minister of Environment and Food, Denmark

Sam Kass – Senior Food Analyst at NBC News and former U.S. White House Chef

Liz Goodwin – Chief Executive Officer, Waste and Resources Action Programme.

Together these food waste fighting heroes will inspire ambition, mobilise action, and accelerate progress toward achieving SDG 12.3, creating more sustainable consumption and production habits around the globe.

The excitement of Champions 12.3  also takes place alongside the launch of a new food waste project – YieldWise – by The Rockefeller Foundation. YieldWise is a seven-year, $130 million initiative to demonstrate how food loss and waste can be cut in half globally. The Foundation’s President, Dr. Judith Rodin, is also a Champion 12.3. Feedback was an early grantee of the Rockefeller Foundation’s food waste initiative. Tristram adds, “we are immensely proud and extremely pleased that this has come to fruition in such a spectacular and thrilling way. We look forward to working with the Rockefeller Foundation to bring about their ambitious program to turn wasted harvests into a resource available to feed people and protect the planet”.

Food loss and waste has significant economic, social, and environmental consequences.  Globally, a third of all food is lost or wasted from farm to fork. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), food loss and waste amounts to $940 billion in global annual economic losses. Food waste also consumes about one quarter of all water used by agriculture, requires cropland area the size of China, and generates about 8 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Reducing food waste has an array of benefits from decreasing the negative impact of food production on the environment to saving money for farmers, companies, and households.

Please follow Champions 12.3 to keep up-to-date on their fight against food waste.

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A TOAST to Fighting Food Waste

20th Jan 16 by fb_admin

toast ale.jpg-largeToast Ale is a new craft beer created by Feedback Founder Tristram Stuart specially brewed using fresh surplus bread. Toast Ale has contracted the expert beer craftspeople at Hackney Brewery to make the initial batches.

Toast sources beautiful, fresh bread that would otherwise be wasted. The beer gives new life to artisan breads that are unsold by bakeries at the end of the day. The beer also finds a loving home for crust ends of loaves that are automatically discarded by sandwich manufacturers. Perhaps the best part about Toast Ale is that all profits from the sale go to us, Feedback!

Toast slices, toasts and mashes the bread to make breadcrumbs ready for the brewing process.  It’s brewed with malted barley, hops and yeast by master brewers in Hackney. The toasted bread adds caramel notes that balance the bitter hops, giving a malty taste similar to amber ales and wheat beers. Simply put, Toast is delicious.

Toast Ale is on a mission to prove that the alternative to waste is delicious.

JandJTo find out more about Toast watch the premier on Jamie and Jimmy’s Friday Night Feast.

You can read further about Toast in: Vice Munchies, The Guardian, and The Independent.

You can get your hands on this delicious new craft brew by ordering directly from Toast. Toast is also available online from Craft Metropolis and Craft Rebellion.

If you’re in London, try it before you buy it. You can find Toast at the following London locations:

Clapton Craft E5E5 BakehouseHackney BreweryThe Cock TavernMother Kellys and Earth Natural Foods.

Toast the best thing since… well, you know!

Toastale-jamie-jimmy-tristram-ed

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You Have to See it to Believe it

12th Jan 16 by fb_admin

rob greenfieldWe are happy to present the following guest post by Rob Greenfield, America’s food waste hero and Author of the recent book – Dude Making a Difference.

 

Rob will be in London presenting his TEDx talk, The Food Waste Fiasco, at the O2 on 16/1 and again at the Tiny Leaf on 17/1.

You may have already heard a few appalling facts about food waste but just in case you haven’t, here are a few tidbits of information to catch you up on the issue:

  1. We throw away 165 billion dollars worth of food per year in America. That’s more than the budgets for America’s national parks, public libraries, federal prisons, veteran’s health care, the FBI, and the FDA combined.
  2. About 50 million of our 317 million Americans are food insecure yet we produce enough food to feed over 500 million Americans.
  3. To create just the amount of food that ends up in the landfills we waste enough water to meet the domestic water needs of every American citizen.

Even with these mind-blowing statistics you probably still need to see it to believe it. That is where I come in.

This weekend I arrived in New York City from my second bike ride across America living on food from grocery store dumpsters. On my first ride dumpster diving across America, about 70% of my diet came from dumpsters, totaling up to about 280 pounds of food over 4,700 miles of cycling.

This is what a typical dumpster score looked like:

dumpster score
This time around, halfway across the country, I vowed to eat exclusively out of grocery store dumpsters until I reached New York City. For the 1,000 miles and seven weeks of riding from Madison, Wisconsin to New York City you could have spotted me in any of 300 or so dumpsters across America. I admit I slipped up on my vow a few times. Once when a brownie was set down in front of me in Baltimore, another time over some freshly popped popcorn, and a few times I picked a fresh tomato or leafy green out of a garden. Plus I used oil and some herbs for cooking when visiting friends in their homes. Other than that I ate like a dumpster king and gained five pounds even with all of the time spent on my bike.

Here’s what a guy who eats straight from the dumpster looks like:

dumpster eater
I’m not just dining from the dumpster to meet my needs though. I’m doing this to inspire America to stop throwing away food. My interactions with whomever I crossed paths with helped them to see the food waste fiasco firsthand but still I said I would help YOU see it to believe it.

That is where photos from my public demonstrations come into play. In eight cities along the tour I went out dumpster diving, usually just for one night, and set up my find in a public park the next day. Many people were shocked by what I showed them and even more were angry, not at me, but at the waste of our society when millions of Americans are hungry.

I had just a few days at most in each city to pull these fiascos together. Here is what my friend Dane and I managed to scrounge up in Madison, Wisconsin in two days:

dumpster madison
I found a volunteer via social media with a vehicle to help in each city since I couldn’t carry all of the food on my bicycle. This was is what we gathered in Chicago, Illinois:

dumpter chicago
None of the volunteers even had dumpster diving experience and I was completely new to the dumpster scene in each city. In Detroit, Michigan we started diving the morning of the event and the car was filled with this in 2 hours:

dumpster detroit
In Cleveland, Ohio we spent seven hours at the dumpsters the night before the event and brought this food to Cleveland Public Square. It was 90 degrees (32 degrees celcius) that day so much of the food we found in the dumpsters was spoiled. This is just the good stuff that we pulled out:

dumpster clevland
In Lancaster, Pennsylvania we had two vehicles and we hit about ten dumpsters between the two teams. This is what we took home in four hours.

dumpster PA
Two days later I rolled up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania at 9:00 PM, started diving an hour later, and was sound asleep with this score by 1:00 AM.

dumpster philli

 

And finally I rolled into New York City where I was greeted by the people behind Freegan.info. In one night of walking around the streets of Manhattan we scrounged together this fiasco.

dumpster nyc

The food was still very high quality stuff but I never intended to even give it away. I just wanted to show people what we are wasting. But then people started to take the food and that made the mission all the better. Guys like David were so happy to eat and to share it with their friends:

dumpster w david
Between all of the demonstrations that I hosted we ended up giving away over $10,000 worth of food and fed well over 500 people. To me that is proof of how good the food is that we are throwing away.

I’ve learned that I can roll up in nearly any city across America and collect enough food to feed 100’s of people in a matter of one night. The only thing that limited me was the size of the vehicle I had to transport it. My experience shows me that grocery store dumpsters are being filled to the brim with perfectly good food every day in nearly every city across America, all while children at school are too hungry to concentrate on their studies.

My intentions with these photos are to help you to get an idea of the scale of this issue. Even still these are just photos. Seeing it in person is a whole different story. So I encourage you to go to your grocery store and do something a little different from your normal routine. I want you to walk around to the back of the store, find their dumpster, and take a look inside. You don’t have to take any of the food home with you. You don’t have to get in the dumpster either. Just take a peak and see this problem for yourself. The dumpster may be locked or it may have just been emptied so check out a few places if needed. The first time you see a dumpster full of food your life could be changed forever. If you feel inclined to be a part of the solution I encourage you to photograph or video the wasted food you find and spread it on social media using #DonateNotDump. Tweet it at the store and let them know that we are not going to stand for their waste anymore.

With that action in mind you should be versed in this a little bit more before you hit the dumpsters. Our message to the grocery stores is that we want them to stop dumping their excess food and start donating it to non-profits so it can be distributed to people in need. Through my hands on experience and research I have found that it is a win-win situation for grocery stores to do this. They are protected from lawsuits by the Good Samaritan Food Act, they get tax write offs, they spend less on dumpster fees, and most importantly they are doing what is right for their community when they donate their excess food! The most common excuse for not donating is that they fear liability but they are protected and according to a University of Arkansas study not a single lawsuit has ever been made against a grocery store that has donated food to a food rescue program.

Thousands of food rescue programs, such as City Harvest, Feeding America, and The Food Recovery Network are already feeding people across America and thousands of stores are already donating to these non-profits and food banks. However it is a very small fraction of what could be done. We need more stores donating more often and we need them to compost what they can’t donate rather than sending it off to the landfill.

You don’t even have to peak into their dumpsters if you don’t want to. Share this article with supermarkets or simply talk to the manager while you are at the store and let them know that it is important to you, their customers. Humans with hearts run these stores and we can get them to change for the better! It’s up to us to hold them accountable to treat the environment and our hungry Americans with the respect they deserve.

I believe that we are at a tipping point for ending food waste and with citizen action we can solve this. The excitement inside me tells me that my generation will drastically reduce food waste in our time.

Start by telling your grocery store to #DonateNotDump!

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EFFECT – The Project Launch!

15th Dec 15 by fb_admin

 What is EFFECT?

EFFECT (Europe Figheffect LOGO V1ts Food waste through Effective Consumer Training) is a two year European project, made possible through an Erasmus + grant awarded by the National Office in Poland. The aim of EFFECT is to develop an innovative multifunctional platform, hosting informative and educational content to raise awareness of food waste and encourage citizens to actively reduce their food waste footprint.

Our Plans:

Our objective is to develop ways for adults to easily learn about food waste, how it is caused and what they can do about it. We will do this through an innovative multifunctional platform, hosting informative and educational content to raise awareness of the food waste problem and encourage citizens’ involvement in the process of reducing their food waste footprint. The information will be tailored to individual adult learners and delivered through an innovative outreach strategy.

The platform will include:

  1. Training materials: e-learning content links, check-lists, tips, etc.
  2. Web-TV: hosting interesting short videos about food waste and solutions to reduce food waste footprint
  3. A board game: available as an online game, for download and as a “do-it yourself construction” at home
  4. Events to spread the word

    (From left to Right) Paco- Universitat Autonoma De Barcelona (SP), Dominika- Feedback (UK), Silvia- Eurocrea Marchant (IT), Pascale- Feedback (UK), Nikos- Avaca (GR), Marek- Federation of Polish Food Banks (PL), Maria- Federation of Polish Food Banks (FPFB-PL), Alina- Food Bank in Olsztyn (FBO-PL), Piotr- Food Bank in Olsztyn (PL)
    (From left to Right) Paco- Universitat Autonoma De Barcelona (SP), Dominika- Feedback (UK), Silvia- Eurocrea Marchant (IT), Pascale- Feedback (UK), Nikos- Avaca (GR), Marek- Federation of Polish Food Banks (PL), Maria- Federation of Polish Food Banks (FPFB-PL), Alina- Food Bank in Olsztyn (FBO-PL), Piotr- Food Bank in Olsztyn (PL)

Partners:

  • Federation of Polish Food Banks (FPFB-PL)
  • Food Bank in Olsztyn Olsztynie (FBO-PL)
  • Eurocrea Marchant (IT)
  • Avaca (GR)
  • Feedback (UK)
  • Universitat Autonoma De Barcelona (SP)

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Hurray for Stepney City Farm pigs doing their bit for the climate

11th Dec 15 by fb_admin
Munching on yummy pig porridge of brewers spent grain and okara mixed with whey.
Munching on yummy pig porridge of brewers’ spent grains and okara mixed with whey.

Karen Luyckx from The Pig Idea takes us on a pig feeding tour at Stepney City Farm.

Yesterday I turned up for my first stint of open volunteering at Stepney City Farm. How wonderful to be doing health checks of soft happy bunnies and cheeky ferrets. But the best bit was to witness the food waste pyramid in full action.

Stepney farm gets regular donations of surplus fruit and veg from market traders which are used for topping up animal feed. In this case however the bananas they had been given were still perfect to eat for humans too. So ten bananas were happily munched during the volunteer break, and another ten were peeled and given to Stepney’s two pigs together with some apples. One of them got so excited by the sight of those bananas that she knocked over one of the volunteers in her eagerness to get to them. (Don’t worry, aside from muddy wellies and jeans, no harm was done)

These pigs are hard at work doing their bit to fight climate change.
These pigs are hard at work doing their bit to fight climate change.

We also prepared yummy pig porridge: brewers’ spent grains and okara (by-product from tofu-making) mixed with whey (by-product from cheese-making). What a joy to watch them eating with an eagerness and enthusiasm like only pigs can do. But more importantly, these lovely Stepney City Farm pigs are doing their bit for the climate because they don’t eat virgin crops like rainforest soya or barley. And you don’t need to take our word for it: just check out an important study by Cambridge University published this week.

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2015 Highlights from Feeding the 5000

10th Dec 15 by fb_admin
feeding 5k warsaw
Veg heads at Feeding the 5000 Warsaw

Feeding the 5000 has had a tremendous 2015. Since 2009 we have held 34 events in 30 cities spread across 18 countries. Here’s a look at some of the highlights from this year:

To coincide with World Food Day, we held TWO Feeding the 5000 events in one day! At Feeding the 5000 Warsaw we served 5000 portions of the main meal and gave away 600 kg of food through Disco Chopping, workshops and grocery giveaways– all this despite torrential downpour!

kriva
Having fun at Prague’s Kriva Polevka

Prague’s Kriva Polevk, or Wonky Soup, was organised in partnership with Zachraň jídlo, Feedback, FUSIONS and many others. The event had loads of information boards around the square to engage with passersbys and let them know about ongoing work such as Gleaning Network EU. There were also workshops such as carrot-top leaf pesto making. The event has helped expand the reach of the Gleaning Network in the Czech Republic and catalyse action.

079
Ugly fruit and veg demo

Banquet des 5000 Paris was part of Alternatiba’s wider weekend festival on the 26th and 27th of September held at Place de la Republique. The festival aimed to show alternatives to addressing climate change and inequality that already exist. They brought together over 400 organisations and had over 60,000 people attending the event.
Over 250 dedicated volunteers took part and their enthusiasm created a celebratory two days of disco chopping and feasting. We even had an ugly fruit and veg demonstration to further spread the word around the festival. There was a special space for children where they made  Disco Salad, food waste signs and sculptures from wonky veg.
The event was widely covered on large national media – including several key TV slots on Le Petite Journal, TV3 France and Canal+.

Making food waste smoothies from pedal power
Making food waste smoothies from pedal power

Saving Grace Perishable Food Rescue partnered with Feedback and other local organisations to organise Feeding the 5000 Omaha for US Food Day. It was the first event of its kind in the Midwest and the whole feast was made into a mini-festival with cooking demos and family activities such as making fruit waste smoothies powered by bike. Though food availability is ample in developed nations, the event highlighted how food is not being distributed fairly. There was a big apple gleaning that showed how food waste occurs at the farm level for reasons such as apples being oddly shaped or not meeting size requirements. We look forward to continuing the fight against food waste in the US in the future.

Volunteers at Feeding the 5000 Athens
Volunteers at Feeding the 5000 Athen

On the 10th October Feedback organized Feeding the 5000 Athens– the second in Greece. The event brought together a roster of partners including the British Council, Boroume, WWF, the City of Athens and FUSIONS. Following the event, Feedback went to a refugee camp and fed thousands more – in this time of difficulty for many, Feeding the 5000 Athens sent a strong message of solidarity.  Press coverage was far reaching, with international media interest from the US and China.

We served Canada’s biggest free lunch ever using surplus food! Feeding the 5000 Vancouver put the topic of food waste on the table with a  3-course lunch served by culinary students and volunteers. The entire menu was composed of food that otherwise would have been wasted and was donated from industry donors.

Two-Michelin star Chef Marco Sacco created a delcious menu at Feeding the 5000 Milan
Two-Michelin star Chef Marco Sacco created a delcious menu at Feeding the 5000 Milan

At the heart of worldwide celebrations for World Food Day and to celebrate the launch of the Urban Food Policy Pact we held Milan’s Feeding the 5000 on Piazza Castello.

f5k budpest
The food waste revolution is growing strong in Budapest

 

 

 

 

 

On the eve of World Environment Day, the food waste revolution hit Budapest where a coalition of 12 organisations came together to celebrate the delicious solutions to food waste. Give Food a Chance (Esélyt az Ételnek Nap Budapest) highlighted that 99% of surplus food is currently wasted in Hungary. The event also helped catalyse a pilot project in two Tesco stores to donate fruit and vegetables, in addition to baked goods. The pilot project is thought to mean a total of 100-200kg is being saved, per store, per day. The pilot plans to roll out to further Tesco shops this year across Budapest and goes to show how action against food waste is snowballing across Hungry.

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Feedback’s Top 10 Most Amaizing Food Waste Stories of 2015

10th Dec 15 by fb_admin

From parsnip mountains to loads of luxury treats, here’s a list of Feedback’s top news stories of the year:

photo watermarked1. Why are we wasting so much food?
Written and Narrated by Feedback Founder Tristram Stuart for AJ+, this short animated video argues that food waste is a global scandal of epic proportions.

2. Enough Is Enough: Challenging the chorus calling for dramatically increasing food production
In this article for Medium, Tristram Stuart discusses how food production is the single biggest impact humans have on the environment.

3. Food: How much does the world need?
This article for the World Economic Forum explores the notion that there is plenty of food to feed a growing population but more efficient consumption habits are needed to do so.

4. Hugh’s War on Wasteparsnip in arms

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s three part documentary series for BBC1 sets out to find out why we waste so much food, catapulting food waste into the national spotlight.

5. Supermarket’s #stopdumping your food waste on farmers

The short YouTube video highlights the staggering amount of waste that gets dumped on farmers due to strict cosmetic standards and last minute order cancellations.

foodwasteedd6. Binned by Waitrose: From Heston’s pies to gourmet pizzas, 83 luxury – and edible – food items dumped at one supermarket branch

Feedback’s Edd Colbert reveals the astounding amount of food that gets wasted in one Waitrose store.

7. Rejected: Almost half of food grown in Kenya for Europe is wasted

For Food Tank: The Food Think Tank, Edd Colbert shares his experience uncovering how far reaching the global food waste scandal is while on a trip to Kenya.

8. The UN Sustainable Development Goals set food waste reduction target

The UN adopts new SDGs including food waste reduction targets to “halve per capita global food waste at the retail and consumer level, and reduce food losses along production and supply chains by 2030”.

9. Meet the gleaners helping themselves to one Norfolk farmer’s crop of parsnips beets and peeps

Follow a group of volunteer gleaners to a parsnip farm in Norfolk in this Guardian article.

10. “The beauty of this problem is that it has many solutions and those solutions are delicious.”

Feeding the 5000’s Global Campaign Manager, Dominika Jarosz, discusses the problem of ‪foodwaste and how it is being addressed on BBCRadio5 Live at 2h 48m.

 

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How pigs can help us face up to Climate Change

10th Dec 15 by fb_admin

pigs tristramA new study published by Cambridge University reports that “feeding our food waste, or swill, to pigs (currently banned under EU law) could save 1.8 million hectares of global agricultural land – an area roughly half the size of Germany, including hundreds of thousands of acres of South America’s biodiverse forests and savannahs – and provide a use for the 100 million tonnes of food wasted in the EU each year.”

There’s a whole lot of things we need to face if we’re going to stop ourselves from major environmental disaster. One of those things is the food waste scandal, it’s outrageous, immoral and catastrophic for the changing climate. Feedback can be proud of its part in creating the public outcry on food waste; everyone is talking about it.

But there is something else we are still sticking our heads in the sand about: meat. Without a reduction in global meat consumption, it will be almost impossible to keep global warming below the ‘danger level’ of two degrees Celsius. Chatham House puts it this way in their recent study: “a shift to healthier patterns of meat-eating could bring a quarter of the emissions reductions we need to keep on track for a two-degree world.”

While reversing the global appetite for meat is crucial, there is something a little easier that can be done at the same time, and Feedback has been leading the way here too: it’s the Pig Idea. Simply put, the Pig Idea challenges the fact that our current food systems prioritises the feeding of animals over that of people by feeding virgin crops such as soy, maize and wheat to livestock. The inefficacy of this system is crazy: 36% of the world crops harvested are used as animal feed, but animal based food only delivers 12% of the calories of the world’s population.

Pigs are the ultimate food recycling machine and have eaten humankind’s food waste for thousands of years. Indeed, during both world wars it was illegal to feed pigs any food that was deemed fit for human consumption. Yet now the reverse is true. The current EU ban on feeding catering waste to pigs is a major legislative block to making our food system truly sustainable.

As the new study from Cambridge University identifies, feeding pigs kitchen left-overs can not only prevent vast amounts of food being lost from the supply chain (the average restaurant wastes 21.5 tonnes of food per year – sustainable restaurant association), but it can also dramatically offset the impacts conventional livestock feed is having on our planet and global food prices.

While we need to reduce the amount of meat we eat, it makes environmental and economic sense for pigs to eat more of it, at least in the form of our left-overs. And you don’t need to take Feedback’s word for it: the Cambridge University study “Where there is swill, there’s a way” (zu Ermgassen, 2015) shows without doubt how important the Pig Idea is for tackling climate change. Changing the EU legislation on animal feed for non-ruminants (like pigs and chickens) is a safe and cost-effective way to help address climate change.

 

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