Food waste: don’t let the supermarkets waste on our behalf

By Claire Spencer / @thedancingflea

Summits like Copenhagen can be frustrating because, by necessity, they place all the cards for positive (and negative) change in the hands of world leaders and delegates. The rest of us can only watch as our path to the future is pulled apart, rearranged and stuck back together. And when it all goes wrong, we feel more disenfranchised and powerless than ever.

But we do have power – and furthermore, we have the capacity to make meaningful change on an international level. Recently, I was inspired to act by Tristram Stuart’s Waste, an amazing narrative that uses reams of data to put our food wastage in a global context. In the West, 10 percent of our greenhouse gas emissions come from producing food that is never eaten. In the UK, 18 million tonnes of carbon dioxide is used to produce our waste food – which is, according to WRAP the equivalent of one in five cars on the road.

Personal profligacy is obviously a factor, and it clearly never hurts to keep an eye on how we all purchase, store and consume food. But it is a drop in the ocean compared to the waste generated by our major supermarkets. Currently, supermarkets submit their suppliers (farmers and manufacturers) to restrictions that encourage waste on a large scale, including last-minute orders, take-back clauses, exclusivity clauses and, in a final insult, leaving those suppliers with the responsibility and cost of disposing of the surplus. And this surplus is gargantuan and, to consumers and the media, essentially invisible, so the supermarkets can carry on as they please – without ever revealing the true extent of their wastage.

Part of the battle is just telling the supermarkets what we want. For example, as a consumer, I don’t care if the shelves are empty at the end of the day, and I am happy to write to the supermarket chains I frequent to tell them as much. But it’s also about transparency and oversight of their waste practices, and that is where a supermarket ombudsman would come in. Stuart makes the very valid point that we are in a unique position to demand this from the supermarkets – unlike many other companies, they cannot relocate to a more ‘favourable’ regulatory climate – they have to be where their consumers are, and their consumers are right here.

Yesteray, Ed Miliband said “the most important thing is that we don’t lose heart and we don’t lose momentum.” The momentum may not be as we had hoped, but it is here. Let’s use it. Sign my petition for a supermarket ombudsman, and stop the supermarkets from using energy that could be used more productively elsewhere.

This post was also published on Liberal Conspiracy.