There is enough food wasted, in the drive to ensure consumers have whatever they want whenever they want it, to fill every hungry person’s empty plate in the UK three times over…
There’s a scandal waiting to explode and, to me, it is as big as David Attenborough’s expose of plastic waste polluting the ocean.
Here’s a quick quiz:
- Before the pandemic, how many people were reported to be malnourished in the UK?
- Before the pandemic, how many people in the UK were dependent on food parcels?
- In October (2020), how many were struggling to keep food on the table?
- How much food do you think goes into landfill each year?
I hope you’re sitting down.
Q1: Before Coronavirus, the World Bank reported that nearly two million people were under-nourished. Q2: Half a million people were reliant on food parcels, according to Oxfam and Church Action on Poverty. And Q3: Nationwide, in October 2020, the equivalent of the entire population of London was struggling with food: A staggering 8.4 million. But it’s the answer to question 4 that will blow your mind…
landfill
WRAP (the Waste and Resources Action Programme) reports that: “Annual food waste [from] UK households, hospitality & food services, food manufacture, retail and wholesale sectors in 2018 was estimated at around 9.5 million tonnes.”
This waste was worth over £19 billion a year. It was also responsible for more than 25 million tonnes of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Billions of gallons of fresh water would also have been wasted raising crops that would never be eaten. There is enough food waste in the UK to feed hungry people several times over.
Why?
Firstly, stores stock up on anything we might want – enough of every brand, every cut of meat, and every variety of pulse, snack and condiment. Then there’s the science of making profit. One food redistribution charity I visited told me they once had a hangar’s worth of tinned veg delivered because the pantone on the label was one point off its corporate style guide. One time, they had more chocolate than they really knew what to do with, (because it’s not seen as an essential item by some foodbanks or community kitchens), after they were wrongly labelled as multipacks of 6 instead of 9.
It’s all paid for, of course, because their waste is built into the prices we pay at the check-out. Think of that next time a supermarket advertises how much it supports local foodbanks or charities like Fareshare!
unsustainable
There will be a reckoning. It could be the climate change lobby that calls us to account because of the greenhouse gases food waste generates, the clean water pissed away in agriculture, or one of a hundred other ways food waste impacts the environment that I can’t even imagine right now. We have to rethink how food ends up on our plate… while others remain empty.
Sustainability is key.
One thing more consumers will have to learn is how to cook. A celebrity chef’s recipe might call for sustainably-sourced cod but what if all the shop has, (or all we can afford is), pollock. If we knew what we’re doing, it’s a simple switch, and it could reduce the pressure on the supply chain (and the fish) to maintain supply. The Quids in! Guide to Food, that I’m currently crowdfunding for, is starting this process. We can’t assume everyone knows all there is to know about stretching and managing a budget for meals, so we’re sharing what we’ve learned from people who are struggling most. There are cheap eat recipes, tips on saving money and, as you’d hope, ideas on ways to reduce food waste.
You can help. Right now, we are crowdfunding. We are calling on members of the public to get involved and back the circulation of a new guide from Quids in!: ‘Food – Managing Meals on a Limited Budget’. Although we’ll be working with our usual partners in social housing, local authorities and support organisations, we know many individuals feel strongly about tackling hunger in the UK and would like to do more than pay for handouts from foodbanks. That’s where the crowdfunder campaign comes in. See: qimag.uk/learntofish
