On 19th February 2013, in Nairobi at the gala dinner of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) governing council, 500 ministers, diplomats and senior officials from around the world dined on a delicious meal made from Kenyan-grown food that would otherwise have been wasted or fed to animals. Tristram Stuart, founder of Feeding the 5000 and author of Waste: Uncovering the Global Food Scandal (Penguin, 2009), addressed the gathering, highlighting the role British and European supermarkets play in causing food to be wasted even in Kenya where millions of people are undernourished. The waste-based reception dinner highlights the Think.Eat.Save campaign, a new global food waste initiative launched by UNEP in partnership with UNFAO and Feeding the 5000.
Kenyan green beans that would otherwise have been fed to animals
During the last week Tristram has visited farmers and suppliers around Kenya who currently waste up to 40% of what they grow, even though it is perfectly good food. In Kenya, farmers grow green beans, baby corn, broccoli, sugarsnap peas and many other vegetables for the export market, but much of their harvest is wasted owing to the unnecessarily fussy cosmetic standards of British and European supermarkets, which mean for example that if a bean is too short or too long it is rejected or cut down to size to fit in the supermarket plastic punnets. In addition to the onerous cosmetic standards, supermarkets often arbitrarily cancel forecast orders at the last minute, after the crop has been grown, harvested and brought to the packhouse. The grower often has no option but to discard the food and bear the entire cost of the waste. Growers complained that they often pack the produce in the supermarket packaging, fly it all the way to the UK, only for the supermarket to reject the entire consignment – again, entirely at the grower’s cost. Tristram and the Feeding the 5000 team, with the generous help of many local informers, persuaded suppliers to support their global food waste campaign by donating some of the food they normally waste so that it could be used for the dinner, and for distribution to local charities. They collected over 1.6 tonnes of quality food, and were offered many more tonnes of so-called ‘green waste’.
‘It’s a scandal that so much food is wasted in a country with millions of hungry people; we found one grower supplying a UK supermarket who is forced to waste up to 40 tonnes of vegetables every week, which is 40% of what he grows”, said Tristram. ‘At one packer, I saw more than 20 tonnes of ‘green waste’ being trucked off to feed livestock each day, even though every bit of it was good food for people: if I’d grown it in my own garden I would have been proud. The waste of perfectly edible ‘ugly’ vegetables is endemic in the global food supply chain, and in this case represents a colossal waste of Kenyan land, water, fuel, agri-chemicals and labour. Land and water are in scarce supply in Kenya, so it’s shocking to find these resources ultimately being squandered by the unfair, wasteful policies of European supermarkets. What I’ve seen has been a distressing instance of the world’s negligent use of resources, and unjust treatment of growers by disproportionately powerful retailers.’
‘But this level of waste is also a huge opportunity: by persuading supermarkets to change their standards, and by developing processing and other ways of marketing this produce, we can help to increase on-farm incomes and food availability where it is needed most. I also visited some fantastic examples of value addition and loss-reduction during my stay in Kenya; for example, grower co-operatives who have come together to invest in solar-drying equipment to preserve mangoes during the glut season so that the fruit is preserved for an entire year and can be sold at a higher price for local consumption or export. This kind of innovation which can help to tackle the widespread problem of post-harvest losses in Kenya and around the world, is a win-win-win situation for the economy, society and the environment. The UNEP dinner - and the many Feeding the 5000 events we have run in London, Paris, Dublin and Bristol - aims to change attitudes and highlight best practices, by showing that there is absolutely nothing wrong with this food we so casually discard.’
Sugar snap pea too small for supermarket specifications
After the dinner, the Permanent Secretary to the Kenyan Ministry of Environment wrote to say “It was a pleasure meeting you last night and learn about the great work you are doing in Kenya and the world. The issues you are involved in - i.e raising awareness about the challenges of global foodprint, is a real concern and I wish to commend you sincerely for highlighting them and using examples from our country. I would like to have the Ministry Environment partner and support the work you are doing.” In subsequent discussions, he pointed out that “nature loves diversity, and wasting cosmetically imperfect food is an irony and mockery of nature”. Ministers and other officials from as far away as Peru and Norway congratulated Feeding the 5000 for inspiring a highly diverse audience with the many practical solutions to the global food waste scandal. As well as planning further work in Kenya, Feeding the 5000 has now been invited by governments and NGOs from around the world to launch their food waste campaign in over 20 cities, with the flagship event at which 5000 members of the public are fed with food that otherwise would have been wasted. Feeding the 5000 looks forward to the next big flagship event in partnership with UNEP’s Think.Eat.Save campaign, scheduled for May 2013 in New York City.
Tell your supermarket that you want to eat wonky fruit and vegetables too. Get involved with the campaign and sign the food waste pledge.
