Lies of the Food Crisis
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have any pudding |
Stop wasting food, our Prime Minister urges us presenting a mountain of statistics implicating us all as flagrantly wasteful and decadent ingrates and low and behold the people hang their heads in shame and accept inflation as their divine penance and go on their weary way with the woes of the world upon their shoulders.
But is that the whole story I ask myself?
The food crisis as a whole is being blamed by government and media on :
1) Population expansion (mainly developing world)
2) Drought (mainly caused by “climate change”)
3) The production of Biofuels
Which leads to politicians and their scientific advisers making prophetic announcements on how we will have to increase food production in order to feed the world. Which sounds laudable until you dig deeper and find stories of wealthy countries paying $300 billion a year to subsidise agriculture which dumps millions of tonnes of excess produce onto the markets at below market prices.
Our own government dumped almost 30,000 tonnes of fresh vegetables and fruit over the last ten months in order to guarantee farm prices.
We live quit close to a large supermarket and being the healthy types we regularly buy fresh fruit and vegetables which infuriates us by perishing within days of purchase whereas I recall my Mother storing vegetables in a cupboard for a week to ten days or more before consumption without problems back in the 70’s. What’s going on?
“Retailers generate 1.6 million tonnes of food waste each year… An influential watchdog, the Sustainable Development Commission (SDC), will condemn targets set by the Government’s waste-reduction programme as ‘unambitious and lacking urgency’. It will also say multi-buy promotions are helping to fuel waste and obesity in Britain. Speaking to The Independent on Sunday ahead of the report’s publication on Saturday, Tim Lang, SDC commissioner, said it was ‘ludicrous’ that the Government had not pressured retailers into setting tougher targets to cut waste.
Three years ago, the government-funded Waste and Resources Action Programme (Wrap) left it up to supermarkets to find voluntary ’solutions to food waste’ in an agreement dubbed the Courtauld Commitment. ‘The Government is frankly not using its leverage adequately. It really should toughen up on Courtauld, which must be enforced because this is ludicrous,’ said Mr Lang, who is also professor of food policy at City University, London.
The 18-month study, which found that ‘too many supermarket practices are still unhealthy, unjust and unsustainable’, said Wrap should adopt a ‘more aspirational approach to reducing waste in food retail by setting longer-term targets and [supporting] a culture of zero waste’…
A separate study by Imperial College for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, found that supermarkets preferred to throw away food that was approaching its sell-by date rather than mark it down in price.”
Well a number of things here. British food retailers are famed for their low margins on sales so what they do is they store the food in warehouses and distribute it to the outlets only days or weeks before its going to perish so they are ultimately guaranteed more sales as consumers find their goods inedible within an unworkable timeframe and have to come back for more. This is ensured by only distributing the food in fixed packets which exceed the average consumers consumption rate; have you wondered why apples have to come in firm sealed plastic cartons? More sales at lower margins.
Then there’s the wastage by the supermarkets themselves which interestingly corporate law protects them from revealing their figures :
“The scale of the wastage from supermarkets, food processors, wholesalers and restaurants is not known, because many companies refuse to make their data public, citing commercial confidentiality.” Not surprisingly as rather than sell off their products at discount rates close to perishing they would sooner dump them and maintain margins.
So after all this the government blames the consumer.
Not the perversities of the unsustainable business models of the international agribusiness and CAP.
Not the perversities of large scale retail corporatism, not to be confused with capitalism, which destroys competition and distorts the market.
They blame us.
sorry but since all their purchases go into cost of sales regardless of whether they sell them or dump them it isn’t maintaining margins at all it’s simply they don’t want the hassle of litigious idiots buying out of date stuff at a huge discount then suing. If you want to blame anyone blame the lawyers.
I did say close to sell by, not past sell by. A few years ago my local supermarket started selling goods close to expiry at vastly reduced prices you always knew when they had something worth buying as there was a scrum around the shelves where they were stocked. Clearly management cottoned-on to the popularity of this practice because it soon stopped, it effectively creates a secondary market where customers who live locally come in every day to buy discounted products in preference to their normal stock. This made more loss on sales against an insignificant loss on spoilage (as a percentage), this is basic food produce which people will be buying – discounted or not additionally wastage is tax deductible whereas discounted sale is not.
Then we had better start over eating whilst we can, stocking up for leaner times.
We need a shortage of politicians.
yeh, I often eat food, prawns, fish, meat, whatever, months after the consume by date and it never does me any harm, I, err eee …………….
When I lived in the supermarket, it seemed to me that there was quite a bit of perishable loss. Even non perished items were thrown out because it was easier than distributing it to people who needed it.
Moribunds always have a few near sell-by date items going cheap but to be honest the effort of finding the bargains out weighs the gains.
I am with you Wolfie. The main problem is biofuels and the stupid CAP. Population will be a problem but that is one for Pakistan and Nigeria, not the UK.
There is something desperately wrong with a culture where buying up huge amounts, just to throw it away is seem as normal and proper. Or perhaps it’s not thought about at all. Makes me cry, such wastage.
Some good points, but don’t forget the cost of fuel and exchange rates also…
Good post, excellent point. Pleased to meet! Looking forward reading more in the future. Best, Cassandra (new bloghound)
Very good point about the not-freshness of supermarket food. Pre-fridges, I can remember our family storing meat in a meat safe (a metal box with small ventilation holes!) If we got food poisoning, I didn’t notice. And all that fuss about plastic bags – even without them, look at the wrapping for every item!
I read somewhere recently that Billingsgate fish market employs a specialist waste disposal company which removes six tonnes of fish waste… a week. With fish stocks collapsing its clear that there is a desperate need for reform in the way we structure our food supply markets.
Welcome aboard Cassandra.
Yes, I think you are right about the amount of time food is stored before it is even put on the shelves in the UK and about the “blame the consumer” culture.
Regardng the current uncertainties with food prices and the role of ever increasing demand from China and India. There is a greater need for us to conserve and be increasingly frugal about food consumption at home.
Simple food saving tips are things we need to get used to and practice more regularly. Most of these are common sense and can be quite creative. You can find a list of free food saving tips at sites such as http://www.foodcrisis.co.uk amongst other similar sites as well.
We all need to contribute to a fairer and a more foodwise program for ourselves.
Are you aware that it is estimated that 18.7% of the Worlds energy is used by refrigeration.
In today’s world we take for granted the refrigerator cooling our groceries 24/7 and when we turn off the lights in our homes and businesses, and lock the door for the evening, one of the things which will continue to use power around the clock is our refrigerators and freezers.
New energy saving technologies, are being launched every day, but who can afford some of these technologies which we are being offered, or how difficult are they to install. And how long will it take for me to get my money back in energy savings, big questions.
Refrigeratorsaver is the simplest, most effective, and inexpensive energy saving device for refrigeration.
Invented in the UK by two highly recognized Harry Banham & Guy Lamstaes, who have both recent been listed in the Guardian Observer in the top (50) people who could save the planet,
The Refrigeratorsaver is a silicone gel based thermometer that reads the exact product temperature rather than the air temperature, most refrigerators cool produce colder than needed, and on many home refrigerators we cannot see what the produce temperature, only the reading only the air temperature reading.
This technology which won a millennium award, has no installation, you simply place the Refrigeratorsaver on the shelf, leave for (1) hour, and then you can make slight adjustments on the dial thermostat dial, or digital display in line with the product temperature.
For every one degree you are able to adjust your home or business thermostat is the equivalent to 8% in energy savings, and we have averaged 20 to 24% on most home refrigerators.
We have also found that by cooling produce at the right temperature, produce life extends by 2 to 3 days and with gas prices rising, many businesses are feeling the pinch with fuel charges being added to deliveries, this simple device makes huge saving on any businesses bottom line.
The Refrigeratorsaver is a must for all restaurants, bars, cafes, hotels, hospitals, schools, colleges, universities, and especially homes,
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