| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:How retailers might help us reclaim our streets from this madness | |
| Posted by: | Ed Saper | |
| Date/Time: | 18/09/21 22:18:00 |
| "Food waste is a problem, Ed. No doubt about it. But that comes down to poor planning and management." (Welcome back David!) Food waste is indeed a problem. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/643557/food-waste-policy-challenge-response_-_FINAL.pdf "The UK throws away at least 10 million tonnes of food every year, of which 6 million tonnes is avoidable and has a retail value of £17 billion" Responsibility for the problem is partly on consumers - failing to use the food they buy, "down to poor planning and management" as David suggests and the policy focus is on education, such as the Love Food Hate Waste campaign: https://www.lovefoodhatewaste.com/ However, a big part of the problem is supermarkets selling consumers more than they need via oversized packaging, multi buy deals and BOGOF type promotions. The supermarkets pay lip service to the issue of food waste but their incentive is to sell us as much as possible and more than we need. It is a bit easy to entirely blame consumers, as David does for poor planning, when supermarkets employ every psychological and manipulative trick to get us to buy more. One strategy to avoid food waste is to only buy what you need for the next 1-3 days (i.e. avoid the weekly "big shop"). Planning further ahead can lead to the waste of fresh food if plans change - for instance an invite to dinner, play date, working late at the office (remember that!) or anything else that comes up leading to a meal not being eaten at home and food going past its sell-by date. Buying groceries online doesn't make you immune from supermarket manipulation to buy more than you need - the BOGOFs are still there! But at least you avoid the floor layouts, wafted scents and other tricks they use. Part of my argument with Maggie was her objection to my exhortation that people buy more locally from indie stores. I even quoted David who takes buy local and independent to sometimes extreme lengths! Even though David I frequently disagree about almost everything, I am still surprised that he'd jump in to back Maggie and disown local independent and speciality food retailers so readily. |