Hugh's War on Waste

Ken68

All one sided at present, we need to hear the supermarket reasoning.

Pollycat

missbiggles1 wrote: »

I really do appreciate the importance of meal planning when on a budget and I also hate waste, however, I couldn't bear to know what I'd be eating every day for the next 3 weeks, or even for the next week if it comes to that.

I'm not really on a budget at all, I just like to be organised and know that we'll have decent meals - almost always cooked from scratch - instead of looking in the fridge then reaching for the take-away menu.

It means I can have the ingredients I need in stock e.g. mushrooms, carrots, turnip etc instead of doing what a lot of the people that HFW is targetting do - and that's dumping loads of food in their shopping trolley with no idea of what they're going to do with it and when they're going to use it. And as soon as it's out of date, they throw it away. Cue HFW. :cool:

It's not really a case of knowing what we'll be eating for the next 3 weeks.
I do the plan, stick it on my fridge door and look at it to refresh my memory for shopping.
I don't go round for 3 weeks with 'Ah! We're having meat & potato pie a week next Thursday' in my head. :rotfl:

missbiggles1 wrote: »

How do you know what you'll fancy eating on any given day or doesn't that matter to you?

Good food is very important to us.
We like to eat well and as healthily as possible - and I love to cook.

The plan is not set in stone.

If we don't fancy something, it's not a case of 'well, the meal plan says it's x for tea so that's what we're having'. That would be silly.

In fact, if I find a bargain, the plan will change.
For example, I bought 2 aubergines from Co-op yesterday 20p each reduced from 79p each.
My brain said 'Melanzane alla Parmigiana' and it wil use up some of the reduced mozarella cheese in my freezer and the olive bread (also reduced).

Ditto the 5p swede I bought from Tesco - beef stew wasn't on the plan but it is now.

If you think that meal planning is all about doing a plan and sticking rigidly to it, you're doing it wrong.

GrannyKate

Agree with everyone here. So many of us remember the post war days of the 50s when wasting food would have been unthinkable. As one of a large usually poor family we ate what we were given and some days there wasn't enough. Nothing went in the bin.

I love to buy things by the road from farms or gardens - always more tasty and who cares about the shape or dirt. All this peeling is a waste as well - my old granny born 1896 said the best of the goodness is just under the skin. Her mother spent much of her childhood in the workhouse and she knew what real poverty was.

Haven't caught the HFW programme yet but will do so although will probably get cross.

GrannyKate

It is not just UK where they have these mad policies on food. My sister in US lives near the Canadian border but has to buy fruit imported by plane thousands of miles from California which is usually bland and tasteless. Just across the border in Canada they have lovely orchards but bringing it into US is restricted.

VfM4meplse

I caught up with this last night and was pleasantly surprised, HFW did mobilise a population to change.

The KFC chicken scrappage I found upsetting. At least I now know 1 chicken = 1 kg.

I was also stunned that people would rather bin something rather than donate to the chaz!

[Deleted User]

I really enjoyed the programme and I am not normally a HFW fan at all. but for once he seemed to be talking sense and not in the least condescending

I loved his stall outside Morrisons The manager soon whipped outside when he knew what was happening :):)

I felt for the farmers involved and the strong arm tactics by the big store doesn't show them in a good light at all.I know big business has to make profits and they are not a charity but to brazenly care so little about the suppliers, and ignore the wants of their customers seems insulting. No wonder the company seems to be in trouble financially.
Tesco are finding a slump in profits and wonder why.Shoppers are not stupid sheep who will accept whats dished out and when housewives/customers purses start to feel the pinch then they will shop with their feet.

For years I only shopped at Sainsbobs, and was like many people, just did the big shop and chucked things in the trolley without thinking.

Looking back over the past 20 odd years since I retired and have more time to think about what I am buying I find now that I have altered my shopping habits to suit both my purse and lifestyle .I now shop twice a month mainly at Lidls,Aldis, and if I have vouchers Waitrose or M&S.I live three minutes away from a Tesco metro but can't remember the last time I went into it.The prices there have become a joke

We used to have a big co-op supermarket where I live but it closed down, and Wilkos is now on the site Ideal for household bits and bobs.10 metres of foil is 75p in there whereas in Tesco's it much dearer.In Wilkos bicarbonate of soda is £1.50 in Lloyds the chemists its £3.50 for the same amount.People soon learn where to get the best value for money especially if you live on a fixed pension.

We used to have a small greengrocers locally but he has now retired so I will go to a farm shop for my stuff if I run out of veg before my next end of the month Lidls shop. I don't really mind wonky veg and like unpackaged stuff.

Re the food banks, just because people have to use them,even working people it doesn't mean they don't know how to cook.many people through various reasons use food banks and are perfectly capable of cooking wonky veg.To assume that because their poor, their stupid, is stereotyping of the worse sort.

We collect at my local U3A for the food banks and I know of families locally who are eternally grateful for the helping hand they get.They don't roll up every week for free shopping its very strictly controlled.

Folk have this idea that its only the indigent that use food banks, quite often its people who for what ever reason have fallen foul of bureaucracy and have children to try and feed on very little cash. I help at a food bank on occasions and know how sad some people are at even having to go there.Bad luck can happen to anyone and food banks and sadly homelessness is a modern day malady.

We live in a country that should be helping our disadvantaged not knocking them

OK its easy to watch the 'benefits !!!!!!' programmes on channel five and say look at those idle lazy folk, but like everything you are only been shown what the programme makers want you to see.

So if you see a trolley collecting, if you only put a tin of beans in, think it may help to feed one of your fellow citizen or their child no child deserves to go hungry to bed in 21st century Britain

Rainy-Days

Ken68 wrote: »

All one sided at present, we need to hear the supermarket reasoning.

As of close of the programme last night Hugh was still trying to get Morrisons to account for their actions. Not only that Morrisons went to ground numerously throughout the programme - for months in fact - and did everything possible to circumvent a camera interview.

On top of the above, it would appear, that the parsnip grower had been on the receiving end of threats and the words to the effect from the farmer were that when his last order is delivered and paid for in full by Morrisons only then would he go back on camera. He has been threatened alright - make no bones about it. No one - and I mean no one would make such a statement and the denial by Morrisons that they had said it frankly stinks to high heaven.

I am disgsuted by Morrisons, their actions leave allot - by a considerable way - to be desired. They have refused to discuss the issue, dodged months of correspondence with Hugh and made mealey mouthed excuses for their abject and wonton wastefulness. Point blank I won't be shopping in Morrisons any time soon. We have one in the town - in fact apart from Lidl and M&S it is the only supermarket. They can go and get stuffed now, I will drive into Cramlington instead and use Sainsbob's there (they are probably not much better, but after last night I am furious).

Always, always had a suspicion that Morrisons was not ever above board and that programme last night totally proved it. :mad:

Pollycat

Ken68 wrote: »

All one sided at present, we need to hear the supermarket reasoning.

As Rainy-Days points out so eloquently in the post above, I think HFW woud also like to hear the supermarket's (i.e Morrisons) reasoning.

I doubt anybody who watched the programme is holding their breath though.

Does anyone know if there has been a backlash on social media against Morrisons as a result of the prgramme? I don't do Twitter or Facebook.

ETA:
This was reported 4 days ago - just before the programme was broadcast:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3298353/Waste-not-want-not-Morrisons-supermarket-donate-unsold-food-community-groups.html

A bit of damage control by Morrisons maybe?

[Deleted User]

drinkupretty wrote: »

Grand scale food waste has always got my goat!

Me too.

I am sure some of it could go to a soup kitchen for the homeless

And so it can, but it won't even scratch the surface of the problem.

Supermarkets not only bully farmers, pay them a pittance and have weird standards

Because there's so much oversupply that we can't possibly eat it all.

There really should be a change in the law forcing supermarkets to donate unsold food to food banks, soup kitchens or for feed for animals and they should be fined per kilo of perfectly fine food that they waste!

You've just complained that the supermarket aren't buying more of the farmers produce, and now you're complaining that they've already bought more than they can sell.

Kim_kim wrote: »

I don't understand why they don't use the ugly/wonky fruit & veg for the value ranges.

Because there's so much oversupply that we can't possibly eat it all.

It's quite offensive to deliberately throw so much food away - with so many hungry in the world.

Indeed it is.

Lynplatinum wrote: »

isnt it refreshing to see someone with such a background trying to stand up for the ordinary farmer

No. The way in which a celeb can lead people like sheep with such an intellectually lazy campaign is enough to make you despair at the crass level of political debate.

The problem is a lack of education with regard to the way one can learn to cook, cheap, nutrition dense meals from scratch.

The problem is a lack of education because it's fatuous to suggest that the solution lies in giving food to charity, or making soups and smoothies from leftovers when there is there is so much oversupply that we can't possibly eat it all.

Eyeore wrote: »

the amount of food waste is an absolute disgrace and yet it could be so easily turned around!

.....by cutting the amount of food produced.

Ken68 wrote: »

All one sided at present, we need to hear the supermarket reasoning.

I daresay they would want to know how the hell they're supposed to cut down on waste by buying more of the farmers excess crop when they and the consumers are already throwing food away.

GrannyKate wrote: »

So many of us remember the post war days of the 50s when wasting food would have been unthinkable.

That's because there was a shortage in those days, not oversupply.

JackieO wrote: »

I felt for the farmers involved and the strong arm tactics by the big store doesn't show them in a good light at all.I know big business has to make profits and they are not a charity but to brazenly care so little about the suppliers, and ignore the wants of their customers seems insulting.

It's hard not to have sympathy for the farmers, it must be soul destroying to watch the business you spent several generations building going down the plughole, but what would you have the supermarkets do? The consumers are wasting food, the supermarkets are wasting food, and the farmers are wasting food, but your solution would appear to be have the supermarkets buy even more, thereby just transferring the waste further down the chain.

The solution to the waste is as follows:

1) Consumers stop buying food they can't eat.
2) Supermarkets stop buying food they can't sell.
3) Farmers stop growing food they can't sell.

catkins

I've just watched the programme and it's made me very angry. Angry with the supermarkets who only want perfect fruit and veg, angry that they treat the farmers like dirt. Angry that a farmer cried because of a supermarket's attitude.


I'm also angry with the British people though. Why are so many people throwing away perfectly good food and other items? That was a bin collection for 1 street so imagine the waste across the country.


Why would you throw away perfectly good bacon or an egg that is 1 day out of date? I never even look at dates on eggs, it is perfectly easy to know if they are ok or not. Those onion bhajis could have been lunch another day - they certainly would be in my house.


I was lost for words with the thrown away clothes, kitchen items, ornaments etc. I don't think I have ever thrown a piece of clothing in the bin. If it is ok it goes to a charity shop. If not ok, I cut off any buttons and then cut it up for dusters or as pieces of fabric. Those pieces of fabric can go in a small bundle to a charity shop or I put them in the shoeboxes I do for children abroad at Christmas. I also put in children's scissors, beads, buttons, glue etc so the child can make something. Our local church also takes fabric scraps for their childrens activity days.


Ornaments, furniture, kitchen items etc go to a charity shop or put on freecycle or the local facebook free items page.


Ok some people are always going to be wasteful but I can't believe just how many people seem to be so wasteful. Go to the local household tip and see the perfectly good items people throw - kid's bikes, toys, furniture and you are not allowed to take any of it even if you offer money for it.


It's disgusting and so unnecessary