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Sign the Feeding 5k Pledge

I pledge to reduce my food waste and want businesses to do the same


19 February
 

Scandalous Food Waste in Kenya

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.

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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.’

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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.

10 February
 

Brassica Gleaning in Kent

Farmers across the UK often have no choice but to leave tonnes of their crops unharvested and get ploughed back in the soil. These crops cannot reach the market either because they fail to meet the retail strict cosmetic standards or because of overproduction. At the same time, 5.8 million people suffer from deep poverty in the UK and cannot afford a decent diet, and this number is on the rise.

Gleaning Network UK is an exciting new project that coordinates teams of volunteers, local farmers and food redistribution charities in order to salvage this fresh, nutritious food and direct it to those that need it most.

On 9th February 2013, our volunteers travelled to a farm in Kent to glean cabbages and cauliflowers.

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We all soon got to work harvesting the delicious produce!

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The farmer told us that they couldn’t sell the cabbages because some of their outer leaves had been pecked.image

However, just pull off the outer leaves, and you were left with these tasty specimens!

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They couldn’t sell the cauliflowers because they were “cracked”, which simply means that there are a few gaps between the sections of the cauliflower, and because there were some tiny spots on the outer leaves, pictured below. As you can see, the cauliflowers were perfectly fit to eat, and indeed delicious!

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Everyone had great fun on the day, reclaiming these delicious characters from being wasted!

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The food that goes to waste on farms is immense. The FAO estimates that in Europe, losses at farm level are roughly 20% for fruits and vegetables. In the UK, WRAP estimates that in the UK 5-25% of apples, 9-20% of onions, and 3-13% of potatoes are lost just due to grading. The Soil Association, Friends of the Earth and other research indicates that this could be even higher. The scale of losses induced by cosmetic standards was hinted at when during extreme UK weather conditions in the summer of 2012, supermarkets temporarily relaxed their standards under pressure from the National Farmers Union. This saved an estimated huge “300,000 tonnes of produce”, and this is just the tip of the iceberg.

    Meanwhile, 5.8 million people live in deep poverty in the UK, and this figure on the rise. Food redistribution charities have been struggling to cope with the massively increased demands on their services. In 2011-12 foodbanks fed 128,687 people nationwide, and anticipate that this will rise to over 230,000 over 2012-13, with 250 foodbanks currently launched by the Trussel Trust alone. FareShare provides 8.6 million meals in 2012 for 36,500 people each day. But food redistribution charities like FareShare are desperate for more fresh fruit and vegetables to supplement the manufactured foods they have traditionally accessed.

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All in all, we saved over two tonnes of produce from going to waste, and donated it via FareShare to a variety of charities dealing with food poverty.

This is just the beginning. The massive potential for gleaning in the UK is illustrated by the US, where extensive gleaning networks already exist; for example, the Society of St Andrews has saved more than 164 million pounds of food for America’s hungry since its inception in 1988, saved by over 400,000 volunteers. By 2010, it had a network of 900 growers and ran an average of more than eleven gleaning events, with 8-9 volunteers each every single day of the year, with overheads amounting to about two cents per serving.

That’s a lot of food!

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Potatoes salvaged by Society of St. Andrews in the US.

Back in Kent, the cauliflowers field extended as far as the eye could see, and almost all the produce was going to waste. The one tonne of cauliflowers we managed to harvest was a tiny fraction of the total produce that would have been wasted on that one farm alone. We’ll be back soon to liberate the rest!

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Join the Glean Revolution! If you’d like to join our next gleaning day, please email martin@feeding5k.org

Likewise, if you’re a farmer who’d like to host a gleaning day, please get in touch!

7 February
 

Gleaning Network UK is finalist for Nesta's Waste Reduction Challenge Prize

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Feeding the 5000’s Gleaning Network has been selected as a finalist in the Waste Reduction Challenge Prize! The challenge, run by Nesta, the UK’s innovation foundation, and funded by the Cabinet Office aims to identify new ideas that can influence and mobilise communities to make significant reductions in waste and impact behaviour for years to come.

Each of the Finalists will receive funding of up to £10,000 and additional help to set up and test their innovations over the next six months. We’ll be using this money to grow the gleaning project to save many tonnes of fruit and vegetables from going to waste on farms around the UK!

The winner will be selected in November following the test period and will receive the £50,000 prize. The winning idea will be the initiative that reduces, reuses and/or recycles the greatest level of waste by engaging communities in giving their time, skills and resources.

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24 November
 

14 October, 2012
 

10 March, 2012
 

Food waste bill in UK Parliament

We’re delighted to have contributed to the new Food Waste Ten Minute Rule Bill, which is due to receive its first reading in Parliament on the 14th of March. The Bill, introduced by Bristol MP Kerry McCarthy, aims to cut through the obstacles to food donation and to ensure that more of the surplus food from supermarkets reaches the increasing number of people living in food poverty in the UK. At a launch event on the 13th in Parliament, speakers included Tristram Stuart, Kelvin Cheung (FoodCycle), Jim Larson (Food Donation Connection) and Defra Minister Lord Taylor of Holbeach.

See more about the Bill and join the conversation on Facebook.

Read yesterday’s Guardian article on the Bill.

Please write to your MP to ask them to support the bill and confirm whether they back it. We’ve included a few pointers at the end of this message to help you in drafting your email.

If you hear back from your MP, please drop a line to alexanderc@parliament.uk to let us know of their response.

Thank you once again for all your support.

Some tips for writing to your MP

- Please keep it brief and concise

- Only email your own MP

- Please always be polite in your email

- Explain why you’re supporting the bill – here’s some pointers:

• The Food Waste 10-Minute Rule Bill seeks to address barriers to food donation and to ensure that more of the food wasted by supermarkets and manufacturers is donated to charities that redistribute it to the increasing number of people living in food poverty in the UK.

• Up to 50% of edible and healthy food gets wasted across the EU and is set to rise by 40% by 2020 if no action is taken. By creating a surplus of uneaten food, the global food industry is adding pressure on scarce land and resources, contributing to deforestation, needlessly adding to global greenhouse gas emissions and helping to drive up global food prices.

• Good food should not be thrown away when food poverty is growing. Retailers and manufacturers waste a staggering 3.6 million tonnes of food per annum. But just 1-3% of retail food waste and an even smaller percentage of manufacturing food waste is donated for redistribution.

• Redistribution organisations are struggling to meet growing demand.  Last year the Trussell Trust’s food banks fed 61,000 people, and this year it expects that figure to double.

The Bill:

1. Places a legal obligation on large supermarkets and large manufacturers to donate surplus food to charities, for redistribution to individuals in food poverty. Food which is unfit for human consumption should be made available for livestock feed in preference to disposal.

2. Encouraging and incentivising all other businesses and public bodies which generate food waste – from small food retailers to restaurants – to donate their surplus for redistribution.

3. Introducing a UK version of 1996 US legislation, The Good Samaritan Food Donation Act, which protects good faith food donors and recipient agencies/foodbanks from civil and criminal liability, except in cases of gross negligence and/or intentional misconduct.

3 March, 2012
 

Where there’s muck there’s brassica

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After months of preparation, we’re launching the Gleaning Network to salvage fruit and vegetables on farms all over Britain. Networks like this exist in the USA, but so far no-one is doing it on a large scale in Britain. On Saturday 3rd March we took nine volunteers down to Geoff Philpott’s farm in Kent to rescue over a tonne of wonky brassicas (cabbages and cauliflowers) that fail to meet the supermarkets’ strict cosmetic standards. All of that good food would otherwise have been ploughed back into the land. Our partners FareShare, the Best Before Project and local MP Laura Sandys came too, and all the produce went to charities to feed vulnerable members of society. This was the third pilot ‘gleaning’ day and we have others planned for the rest of the year. The sun shined as we hacked our way through fields of fresh produce, and there was even time for a swim in the sea on the way home!

If you’d like to volunteer for future gleaning days to help save food and feed the hungry, or can contribute to cover transport costs, please send an email to hello@feeding5k.org.

What does gleaning mean? Read about this ancient practice here

18 February, 2012
 

Food waste in UK Parliament

We’ve been helping generate debates in the UK Parliament on what the government can do to promote the solutions to food waste. Last December, Baroness Jenkin of Kennington tabled a question for short debate in the House of Lords on the benefits of feeding some types of discarded food to livestock – a far more efficient way of dealing with surplus food than sending it for compost or anaerobic digestion. Watch the video of the debate here.

Another debate focused on the 13% reduction of household food waste and the UK food industry’s dismal achievement of just 0.4% food waste reduction since the signing of phase two of the Courtauld Commitment. Tristram Stuart and Feeding the 5000 partners FareShare, FoodCycle and Love Food Hate Waste have followed up the issues in constructive meetings with the government and supporting MPs including Zac Goldsmith (Conservative) and Kerry McCarthy (Labour).

In these meetings, we’ve also been making the case for the urgent introduction of a Groceries Code Adjudicator Bill, which would establish an independent supermarket watchdog. This is a crucial piece of legislation designed to help limit unfair practices in the industry, including cases that result in the waste of perfectly edible food at the cost of farmers, suppliers and consumers. The Bill has been delayed for years and if it doesn’t make it in the next Queen’s speech, it’s in danger of being sidelined.

Tell your MP to back a supermarket watchdog using the Friends of the Earth tool.

Meanwhile, the European Parliament voted in favour of a resolution that called for urgent measures to halve the food Europe wastes by 2025. It warned of a 40% increase in food waste if we fail to take action. The pressure is now on the European Commission to respond by turning this momentum into action.

6 February, 2012
 

Valentines for everyone

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Photo Credit: FareShare UK 

Fancy doing something different this Valentine’s Day? FareShare and the Forgotten Feast (with Feeding the 5000 chef Tom Hunt) are offering a fabulous Valentine’s surplus food banquet on 10th, 11th, 12th and 14th February. A magnificent 3 course menu is on offer made of fresh, nutritious but unloved food – from heart to honey, pheasant to parsnip and kaffir lime leaves.

With the support of StreetSmart, each £40 ticket bought will help the food redistribution charity FareShare provide 80 meals to vulnerable people across Britain. So hurry up and get a place for you and your loved ones here.

31 January, 2012
 

Give a loud message to business

 

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Thanks to the nearly 6,000 of you who’ve signed our pledge. We’re taking your message to the food industry, and have already had the likes of Waitrose, Innocent Drinks, Unilever, Wahaca, Café Spice and others signing up to the principles of the Food Waste Pyramid. Please ask your friends to sign the pledge too.

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