Hundreds of thousands of tonnes of surplus food that could be going to hungry families is going to waste as supermarkets restrict who their suppliers can give it to, according to food distribution charities.
Several independent charities, which are grouped together under the Xcess network, say they struggle to source unwanted edible food from manufacturers and processors because of supermarkets’ rules about the handling of their own-label products.
At least 200,000 tonnes of own-label food fit for human consumption ends up as animal food or is used to generate energy, according to research by the sustainability group Anthesis, because of difficulties in getting it to the right place.
Mark Game, the chief executive of the charity The Bread and Butter Thing, a food club that hands out heavily discounted food parcels to 25,000 registered members, said: “Retailers hold the cards – unless they say yes to manufacturers, they just can’t give [the food] out.
“Demand constantly outstrips supply and we are having to let people down, and if we had this food we could do more.”
David France, the manager of the Lancaster-based community food club Eggcup, said it was impossible to get hold of the food without the retailers’ permission.
“As a fairly new organisation with a tremendous level of growth, we have not been able to establish relationships with larger organisations,” he said. “It is ridiculous how much food is being thrown away because retailers have contracts with larger [charities], which aren’t always able to use that surplus.”
About half the food we buy every year comes from supermarkets’ own brands, and it is estimated that they make up more than 72% of edible surplus food in supermarkets’ supply chains, according to the Anthesis research.
However, with suppliers often packing own-label products for multiple retailers, it is not clear who has ownership of the waste, and it is difficult to get permission from each supermarket involved to hand on unwanted items.
Wrap, the government-backed recycling body, highlighted the issue last summer and issued new guidance calling on retailers to rethink rules that largely limit the redistribution of their unwanted own-label foods to two large charities, FareShare and Company Shop.
It called on retailers to share information so that their suppliers are automatically mandated to directly hand surplus food to a list of smaller charities, including The Bread and Butter Thing, which have already passed tests showing they meet established standards on food safety and redistribution.
Since then, only Sainsbury’s has changed its setup to enable all its own-label suppliers to pass on goods directly without signing numerous local agreements.
Tesco and Asda currently only allow suppliers to hand out surplus own-label food to small charities via FareShare and Company Shop or if audited by FareShare. Morrisons allows its suppliers to give direct handouts to a wider number of named groups but charities and suppliers say they have to cut individual deals rather than gaining easy access via a national mandate.
Game said the change from Sainsbury’s was welcome but many suppliers would not separate out waste food by the supermarket it was packed or processed for, as this added costs and time for hard-pressed businesses. He said a step change in the handling of food waste would not be possible until all the major grocers changed their approach.
Andy Mitchell at Worldwide Fruit, which supplies a wide range of produce including apples, pears and nectarines to big supermarkets, said: “We supply FareShare but they can only take a certain amount of volume.”
He said working directly with The Bread and Butter Thing had enabled the company to increase the amount of edible surplus food it redistributed by a third. It had been able to work with the charity to deal with more difficult-to-process waste, such as end-of-season fruit that was not usually economic to pick or produce and was packed in a way that did not suit FareShare’s systems.
“Having more than one charity in the mix makes a significant difference in the flexibility to take product,” he said.
A spokesperson for Asda said it was in the process of changing its systems to meet Wrap guidelines: “We are already adopting the broader elements of the Wrap guidelines and onboarding charities such as The Bread and Butter Thing and City Harvest and others so they can receive food direct from our suppliers as well as from our stores, depots and FareShare as they do already.”
A Tesco spokesperson said: “We are fully compliant with Wrap’s food donation guidelines and are part of their working group which helps to create the guidance.
“Our food donation programme is the largest of its kind in the UK and to date we have provided more than 135m meals to FareShare, supporting thousands of independent charities and food banks in communities across the UK.”
A spokesperson for Morrisons said: “We work with hundreds of small independent food distribution groups up and down the country, together with the larger groups such as The Bread and Butter Thing on a national and regional level. Both of these initiatives allow for surplus own-label food to be redistributed in a thoughtful and impactful way.”
