Follow the French ?

[joe_bloggs*]

French MPs vote to force supermarkets to give away unsold food

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/10/france-vote-force-supermarkets-give-away-unsold-food-wa...

The new legislation allows individuals to set up associations, with the approval of the agriculture ministry, to collect and distribute food. “It means that ordinary citizens can show their solidarity and help distribute this food to those who need it,” said Derambarsh.

He said the next step is to persuade the European commission to require member states to introduce similar legislation across the EU and, eventually, around the world.

He described the waste of food and the process of deliberately spoiling it and making it unfit for consumption – while the homeless, poor and unemployed go hungry – as “scandalous and absurd”.

Be a great help for our own foodbanks

.

[aernethril]

Here's an associated report on what M&S have been doing on their own batt

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/oct/09/m-and-s-hand-out-thousands-tonnes-food-waste-neighbo...

It's probably not so well known about but hopefully will get more attention and 'encourage' other supermarkets to take similar actoin.

[joe_bloggs*]

My partner helps out at the local credit union and the local Sainsbury's donate foodstuff which is distributed to those most in need,Maybe through the EU they might all have to follow suit,I tell you those pesky pc do gooders interfering in everything!

[suzieseaside]

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@joe_bloggs* wrote:

Be a great help for our own foodbanks

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It's happening here, although I don't think there is yet a law about it:

Various supermarkets here have committed to donating surplus food to charities. I’m not sure that they are allowed to donate those past the use by date so hopefully the dates on obvious items like veg will soon be removed.

M&S is planning to supply surplus food to charities and food banks
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/oct/09/m-and-s-hand-out-thousands-tonnes-food-waste-neighbo...

Morrisons also
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/11968491/Morrisons-to-donate-all-unwanted-food-to-charity.htm...

and Tesco’s – who have already been doing it in Ireland

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3110135/Tesco-cut-waste-giving-food-charity-day-Supermarket-...

Also Some UK and French are selling wonky veg.  This from an earlier thread

http://positivenews.org.uk/2014/environment/agriculture/16073/french-supermarket-sells-ugly-fruit-ve...

“Recent experience in the UK shows that selling wonky fruit and veg has enormous potential and is one of the easiest ways of dramatically reducing food waste in the supply chain,” she told Resource magazine. “In 2012 alone, 300,000 tonnes of fruit and veg were saved from being wasted due to UK retailers temporarily relaxing their cosmetic standards because of bad weather.

Asda are now selling wonky veg
http://positivenews.org.uk/2015/environment/food/17067/wonky-fruit-veg-hits-uk-supermarket-shelves/

[suzieseaside]

[Sorry aerne - just noticed you posted the link about M&S  I took the links from an earlier thread we had on food.]

Still too much wastage though, even before it gets to the supermarket, just because it doesn’t conform to an exact size and shape.
Such as the 20 ton pile of perfectly good parsnips
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-34647454

Hugh Fearnley W said - As a chef, I can tell you there was absolutely nothing wrong with them. In fact, they were beautiful. I would have been delighted to cook with them. They may not have been perfectly straight, or utterly without blemish, or conformed to a robot's laser vision of a perfect parsnip. But they were all just great to me.

Yet the supermarket client found them wanting. They "failed" the "cosmetic standards". They weren't wonky, or forked, or bruised or even "ugly". They just departed, sometimes by a matter of millimetres, from some bizarre set of specifications that defines, with apparent omniscience, what it is that we, the customers, demand our parsnips to be. Not that anyone's asked us.

Not that anyone's asked us. 

Quite!  A load of faceless bureaucrats making stupid regulations without thinking them through or even considering the consequences - wastage and ruining people's livelihoods for no good reason.

[aernethril]

Indeed.

I find it quite bizarre and not a little disturbing that the giant supermarkets have pushed and pushed for the 'perfect' size and shape of fruit and veg on the grounds that 'we' want it that way.

I've always found it rather worrying that somehow the apples were always exactly the same shape and size and weight and I'm sure it cannot be achieved by letting stuff grow normally.