Are supermarket specs contributing to food waste?
But what is the alternative? Would consumers buy 2nd class fruit and veg?
There is a view within the industry that part of the problem causing food waste is specifications, that quality systems within supermarkets are not intelligently designed enough to deal with the problem in their own depots and stores. It is common to see product which is out of date code but perfectly edible and which has in some instances previously been held in a supplychain or shipping containers for several months. Why should this suddenly become waste?
Jon Barfoot, Commercial Director at Barfoots of Botley Ltd, told FreshPlaza that the new juicing trend is a likely consumer of this sub quality product, "There has also been a massive uptick in people using veg for smoothies (carrots, spinach, kale, broccoli etc). Low income groups who otherwise wouldn’t shop in a supermarket would also be interested."
He explains that if the marketing was done effectively, mixed bags of ugly root veg could be created for stews/casseroles, where specification isn’t as important to the customer as say for perfectly ripe stone fruit or berries. "Cheap ingredients for one pot family meals could be bulked together. The question is then does the intended consumer know what to do with it?"
But how can growers still make a profit on 2nd class produce alongside 1st class?
Jon Barfoot: "This is all about the economics of production and marketing. Its axiomatic across all sectors of our industry that primary producers (growers) would like to sell 100% of their crop, as unsold crop is in effect ‘on farm waste’. For lower graded or ‘glut’ product (produced above fixed programmes) growers would accept a lower ‘marginal’ price, assuming that their ‘prime' product was sold at an appropriate price."
"The same goes for any crop that is grown speculatively, without a contract or fixed customer programmes. This assumes of course that the market place is perfect, governed by a trustworthy tiered marketing specification system (i.e. ‘GoodBetterBest’ – we can thank the retailers for this) which appropriately prices products and allocates them to the correct distribution channel so they are all bought by customers. This of course rarely happens due to the dynamics of competition; where the produce marketplace is by character a ‘race to the bottom’ governed by the law of unintended consequences. The savvy grower will know this and so will not flood the market with substandard crop, developing instead a channel strategy where their ‘outgrades’ can go into the processing or freezing sector, although this assumes sufficient operating scale. As ever, the smaller growers are less advantaged and may just have to be ‘price takers’. Nobody said
it was fair."
In other countries the 'ugly' produce has been sold at a lower price, but according to other industry sources this is not that simple, they say that the concept is good but must be commercially viable to have any longevity.
According to one producer: "The #wonkyveg or #ingloriousveg must still be delivered to the stores on lorries, so still has a cost it cannot be free. It will also cannibalise the class 1 product if it’s sold side by side," he explained. "The marketing concept needs more thought as there will be unintended consequences as the retailer profit is eroded. Many retailers have tried selling a lower quality tier such as ‘The Basics’ in the past but what happens when this format becomes the biggest selling line?"
"Consumers are effectively taught to trade down," they add. This is a concern for the whole value chain in a profit driven model that is designed to entice them to trade up."
They say that UK food has been subsidised and sold too cheaply for decades compared to Europe, and consumers don’t really know the true value any more – so sticking the out grades on a shelf doesn’t address this culture of ‘throw away’ that happens in households across the country.
Are there groups who can put pressure on the retailers in the UK?
Jon Barfoot thinks this is an industrywide challenge and one which needs a degree of honesty and collaboration in resolving amongst the supply base, logistics businesses, retailers and Government.
"It is criminal to waste food which has a nutritional value when people haven’t got enough to eat. We have been fighting a war on waste in our business for years but there are very few viable solutions if it’s not commercially based as nobody wants to pay for it. Retailers will counter that they have programmes and initiatives in place but in reality it’s the Fairshare organisation that have been pioneers in this area."
"They are starting to handle retailer rejected fresh foods into food banks but a lot more could be done with depot rejected or out of life product. We built the UK’s first veg powered Biodigester to make electricity, gas and compost with the trimmings from the factory and any foraged crop left in the fields after harvest, but it’s a shame to throw anything other than the offcuts in. We’ve all got to get better at this," concludes Barfoot.
Visit the Barfoots website at www.barfoots.com