Monday Moaning

Food wastage, one of the shocking failures of the system.

The way we shop must change. The way supermarkets present food must change. The way businesses calculate the customer needs must change.

The whole system needs an urgent overhaul.

I am against too many laws, we have far too many in some areas, but not enough in others.

Tesco says almost 30,000 tonnes of food ‘wasted’

Tesco estimated that, across the UK food industry, 40% of apples were wasted, as were just under half of bakery items

Supermarket giant Tesco has revealed it generated almost 30,000 tonnes of food waste in the first six months of 2013.

Using its own data and industry-wide figures, it also estimated that, across the UK food industry, 68% of salad to be sold in bags was wasted – 35% of it thrown out by customers.

And it estimated 40% of apples and 47% of bakery items were wasted in the UK.

The retailer is introducing measures to reduce wastage including developing promotions for smaller bags of salad.

The latest figures published by the Waste and Resources Action Programme (Wrap) in 2011 suggested about 15 million tonnes of food goes to waste each year in the UK.

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Opinion:

Quite frankly, the idea of salad in a bag is the epitome of laziness. It shouldn’t be allowed. Buy a lettuce or a cabbage!

I have seen trays of salad veges in my local supermarket. R$5.00 for a family size salad; turn around and there’s a whole  cabbage for R$0.80, and there’s no polystyrene tray or clingwrap.

It takes about the same time to unwrap the salad tray as it does to cut the cabbage.

Then there’s the quality of the cabbage, most of what I have seen are the parts salvaged from rotting produce; tear off the sad yellow leaves and cut the rest up for salad.

If 40% of the apples are wasted, then they’re buying too many apples.

It’s high time that supermarkets were fined, and heavily, for wasting food. Not just supermarkets but all food retail outlets.

To add to the pot, companies make and market big portions to make people buy more than they need. The customer then has to eat it all (obesity) or chuck what’s left out (wastage).

It’s time that these practices were stopped.

Update!

From The Guardian

Why does anyone buy pre-washed, bagged salad?

Well, obviously, because it looks so fresh and lovely and it’s so clean and convenient, it must be good for you, never mind that it costs a fortune. And because ignorance is bliss. Now, a professor from Imperial College London has gone and ruined it by warning that food-poisoning cases are likely to increase as people buy more salad this way. Pre-washed doesn’t mean safe to eat, he said. It can just mean “looks clean but actually is contaminated with salmonella or E coli”.