Food waste.

[Workingman]

The patronising arrogance of government and the supermarkets is breathtaking.

Some wonk from DEFRA has been on the news telling us, you and me, how to reduce our food waste. All we have to do is keep our fridges below 5°C and our milk and dairy produce will stay fresh for longer. No 5hit Sherlock. And if we keep veg somewhere dark and cool it will last longer, and we can all make better use of our freezers if only we tried harder.

The supermarkets are also chipping in by reconfiguring use-by and sell-by dates and trying different types of packaging. Rejoice - all will be well!

So there we go, the problem of the 15 million tonnes of food we waste each year is solved.

But hang on. Something between 30%-50% of all the food our farmers produce never gets to the shelves or our tables because it does not meet the supermarkets' idea of 'perfection', so it gets ploughed back in. This, in a country that imports nearly 50% of the food we eat - and waste.

Sorry Mr DEFRA, but I will not be going on a guilt trip until the supermarkets sort out their end of the food chain. Not only would that be a whole lot better for the environment, it would also cut costs for consumers and the country. Oh, it would also help farmers as well. Win - win.

[Kaz]

Hear hear!!

[TheOstrich]

Something between 30%-50% of all the food our farmers produce never gets to the shelves or our tables because it does not meet the supermarkets' idea of 'perfection', so it gets ploughed back in.

This really annoys me. Increasing prices on the shelves, people resorting to food banks, and fields of cauliflowers getting ploughed back in!