Fired up about Food Waste?

In the wake of the first installment of Hugh’s War on Waste, a three-part documentary series investigating food waste in the UK on BBC1, there’s been a tremendous outcry for UK supermarkets and food retailers to tackle the incredible amount of food they waste.

Annually, supermarkets are wasting millions of tonnes of food. In fact:

UK businesses throw out over 7 million tonnes of food annually before it even gets to your plate – that’s enough to lift all the hungry people in the UK out of food poverty, and equal to about half the food wasted in the UK -Stop the Rot

For years, Feedback has been investigating the supply chains of some of the UK’s largest food retailers. We’ve also met with farmers in the UK who have been forced to waste food on their farms for two major reasons:

Supermarkets dictate strict product specifications to farmers meaning that they’ll only buy fruits and vegetables that fit demanding size, shape and colour specifications – regardless of the nutrition, taste and value of the food.

On top of this, last minute order cancellations by supermarkets and the businesses they are supplied by leave many farmers without any compensation and no market to sell their food to.

When farmers are forced to waste entire crops some have to resort to taking out loans in order to pay their workers. However, not all workers are paid, meaning they cannot put food on their table or send their children to school. Imagine, the very people who grow our food don’t have enough to eat themselves?

If you’re in the UK and haven’t seen the programme yet, you can watch it on iPlayer.

The next episode will air this Monday 9 November from 9-10 PM on BBC1. You can also follow Feedback on twitter for a live chat during the show. Be sure to use #wastenot. Don’t miss it!

If you want to do more to tackle food waste consider signing Hugh’s Pledge calling for supermarkets to double the amount of waste food they redistribute in the next year and for more transparancy in how they deal with food waste.

#fightfoodwastefriday