Planned economies?

Yeah, we all know how well they worked out. Just ask Ukraine.

Why don’t farmers form their own giant distribution firms and reverse the tables on the supermarkets.

If the supermarkets had to deal with 4 or 5 large wholesalers, then their bargaining power would be curtailed.

Is there some systemic reason why farmers lack the ability to work together for their own mutual benefit?

752,290 tonnes of CO2!

That’s a massive 0.1% of our emissions in 2008!
http://www.decc.gov.uk/media/viewfile.ashx?filepath=statistics/climate_change/1_20091008144835_e_@@_ghgns200090326.pdf&filetype=4

And, a frankly astonishing 0.0026% of global emissions in 2006!
http://www.eia.doe.gov/environment.html

If we had a serious shortage of agricultural land then farmers, supermarkets etc. probably would take greater steps to economise in food production (perhaps further increasing use of preservatives) with market pressures alone (supermarkets clearly do compete on price). But, we could achieve a lot more in policy terms by stopping the switching of a huge amount of agricultural land to biofuels of dubious value in cutting emissions, than by trying to interfere in supermarket business models.

In terms of affecting the degree of potential climate change, this is very far from “meaningful”.

Planned economies?

Yeah, we all know how well they worked out. Just ask Ukraine.

I see reading comprehension remains a problem for most right-whingers. Along with understanding stats of course.

More than happy with Waitrose; though thanks for your concern.

I have no doubt that a supermarket “ombudsman” would do nobody any good at all.

And where does that 10% figure come from?

0.1% sounds more like it.

You know, you might want to have a think about who is encouraging this waste:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7723808.stm

“The rules were introduced to ensure common EU standards, but are regarded by critics as examples of Euro-madness.”

“Some 20% of produce is rejected by shops across the EU because it fails to meet the current requirements. ”

Now it’s true that they’ve lifted these requirements on some but they do still cover 75% of total fruit and veg trade.

Supermarkets reject perfectly good food because the European Union has made it the law that they must.

Tim – please don’t spoil this feelgood thread…

The key words here are ‘regarded by critics’ which to my mind reads ‘regarded by foaming at the mouth Eurohaters’

Just a thought.

Tim Worstall’s post – attacking the EU for something it isn’t doing (with link to story saying it isn’t doing it) – is the perfect comment for a story that’s based on made up statistics taken from people with a vested interest.

10 per cent of emissions? come on.

Why is leaving suppliers to dispose of surpluses a ‘final insult’? Obviously if supermarkets disposed of the surpluses themselves, the prices they pay suppliers would change – why on earth would you think suppliers would be better off that way?

What are surpluses? Lots of the stuff supermarkets don’t want on their shelves gets sold to food processors and put in sausages etc. Are you including that in surpluses? What’s a baseline for wastage? Obviously zero wastage is silly, because spending money to reduce wastage to zero would itself be wasteful. Unless we have some idea of what the optimal level of wastage, how are we to judge these statistics about wastage?

What really blows my mind about all this is that wastage is clearly a cost that profit maximising companies would wish to minimise. Supermarkets are not normally thought of as being relaxed about costs and profits. I’m sure there are some practices that originate in the belief that consumers like to have blemish free fruit, or whatever, that may be hard to justify, but as I say, ugly fruit can be sold to Mr Kipling. What really blows my mind is that people think that just by hectoring supermarkets, they will somehow prompt supermarkets and the whole supply chain to find opportunities to reduce waste that both make economic sense (even sense from a resource preservation point of view – there’s no point in burning electricity to process potato peelings to ‘reduce waste’) and have not yet been exploited already… I mean, there might be some room for movement, but it strikes me as a very unpromising margin and very lazy to assume the supply chain is needless wasteful and all it will take is a good telling off to get them to sort their act out. And I am not encouraged by the quality of the data and analysis originating from the likes of Tristram.

On the subject of the food industry, a more interesting question is <a href="http://d-squareddigest.blogspot.com/2009/12/why-has-fairtrade-coffee-minimum-price.html"Why has the Fairtrade price for coffee only gone up 6 cents in five years? and a lot of other questions raised by Peter Griffiths.

It is surely true that a good deal of wastage is explained by government regulation, isn’t it?

‘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.’

Well I work during the day so it matters to me if the shelves are empty when I get there.

What exactly do you want the ombudman to
do? What powers is he to possess? What sanctions? To whom does he answer – the government or directly to the people through some other mechanism?

Okay, a positive suggestion as an alternative to either existing market mechanisms or centralised state planning: prices should reflect externalities so that goods which are overproduced cost more than goods in scarcer supply, rather than vis-versa, and so that goods which impact disproportionately on the environment either during their manufacture, transportation or disposal pay for themselves.

That’s both purer in both market terms since the cost is of externalities are no longer covered by the State; and working out how much products really cost will keep the bureaucrats in work.

Everybody’s happy.

Tim W: Supermarkets reject perfectly good food because the European Union has made it the law that they must.

To be honest I think we can agree that on the issue CAP must be scrapped – that alone would deal with a lot of food waste.

But you don’t have much to say on how much EU regulations affect food wastage compared to the practices of supermarkets themselves. Without figures its just speculation.

Can we establish whether it’s 10% or 0.1% before we waste any more time?

(Looks like 0.1% to me.)

Chris@10: spot on that man!

cjcjc@15 – Quick back of the envelope calculation would probably be:

UK Agriculture is around 7% of emssions, but that only provides 60% of our food so a figure of 11.6% emissions for the agriculture would seem reasonable. Add on transport, packaging, processing and storage and that figure might go up a fair deal (20% total?). Work out the amount wasted (say 25%) and we get a figure of around 5%. Admittedly this is all a bit hasty, but I think it’s fairly safe to say that while 10% may be on the high side 0.1% is way too low.

I’m going to try to respond to everything – I would just say that you should all read ‘Waste’, but assuming that you won’t:

I don’t think that more transparency and oversight amounts to a planned economy. I do think there’s some merit to Ian’s suggestion, particularly in food areas where supermarkets are keen to demonstrate local sourcing (such as milk/meat) but I don’t know enough to say whether it would be wise (or possible) to enact such a dramatic overhaul. I suppose I feel uneasy about the idea of fighting monopolies with monopolies, or forcing farmers to accept such systems as the only way to get a fair contract with their customers.

Obviously, I must respectfully disagree with Matthew Sinclair (on some elements). Food waste and land-use change are global problems, and they are problems that all countries need to be addressing. Some waste is inevitable – producing slightly more than you need means that you don’t fall short. But this level of waste is too much – and as populations increase, we need more food, and more land becomes agricultural when it does not need to be.

I would also add that the UK is on the verge of missing its next EU Landfill Directive, and if we continue to do so, we will be regularly paying out hundreds of millions of pounds. That’s partly due to the way in which DEFRA have delegated the targets to local authorities, who can target them in the manner of their choosing, but it also doesn’t help if suppliers (not necessarily just farmers, who generally at least return vegetable waste to the land) are having to throw thousands of, say, packaged sandwiches in the bin because a supermarket didn’t place their order until the eleventh hour, forcing them to overproduce (there are severe penalties for not meeting the order). Exclusivity contracts mean that these can’t be sold on.

I do completely agree re: biofuels though. But I would add, on a global level, we feed more edible grains to animals than we use as biofuels. This doesn’t need to happen – and particularly if we’re throwing away a significant percentage (raw meat comprised about 19 percent of supermarket waste in 2004)

It’s also about behavioural change, and influence. If we take a lead in addressing issues surrounding food waste, then we will have a leg to stand on when speaking to countries (such as the US) who waste even more extravagently than we do in the UK and Europe.

The 10 percent figure was calculated using figures from WRAP in the UK and the Department of Agriculture in the US – studies from both show that about a quarter of all food in both countries is wasted, So all the energy associated with production, transportation, storage and preparation is wasted too – which, at a conservative estimate, comes in at about 10 percent.

EU standards have been an issue, although additional cosmetic standards are put in place by the supermarkets that really can’t be blamed on the EU.

It’s an insult because thoses surpluses, in many cases, can be attributed to the contracts between suppliers and the supermarkets, which contain things like exclusivity agreements, onerous cosmetic standards and allow supermarkets to change their minds at the last minute as to the size of the order. Exclusivity means that they can’t sell their produce elsewhere. Your comment about optimal wastage is well made, and think it depends entirely on the foodstuff and its method of production and storage.

I don’t know what you mean about “the likes of Tristram” though – if you want me to clarify where his data comes from, am more than happy to do so!

The ombudsman would be about transparency, and would ultimately help to enforce a code of practice that would prevent supermarkets from blocking their suppliers from selling surplus. Sanctions would be financial. Incidentally, how would you put your alternative into practice? Not necessarily criticising, just curious.

Well according to a government source, the EU had a cereal, rice, sugar and milk product mountain of over 13 million tonnes in 2006: http://openeurope.org.uk/media-centre/summary.aspx?id=256

Of course, that is across the EU as a whole, but it is still massive and presumably has all those same CO2 implications as the discussion above. I just feel it is a bit myopic of the liberal left to always be looking at more regulation as a solution when it is currently existing regulation which might be responsible for the biggest waste of all.

As to just asking the supermarkets to change, I think revealed consumer preferences might count against reducing waste in the particular way Claire suggests. Sure the usual family shopper doesn’t care if the shelves are empty at the end of the day, but what about the nerdish nocturnal libertarians amongst us, who want to be able to crash into a supermarket 10 minutes before closing and have a choice of pre-cooked pizzas and clementines.

Of course, the best way of reducing waste altogether would be to setup your own supermarket and prove it can be done more efficiently. That is the role that entrepreneurs could play, as a more efficient supermarket would obviously also be more profitable. And I am sure some of this will happen naturally under market conditions (we are already more efficient food consumers than those in developing countries). Why it doesn’t happen more quickly might well be down to existing supermarkets clubbing together with government to produce regulations that raise barriers to entry into the market place.

That’s a nice approach.
Though it seems unrealistic to suggest that if the supermarkets bought 25% less food then 25% less food would be produced…it would be (eg) exported, with attendant transportation, etc.
Though it would certainly be less wasteful of course, it would have no impact on emissions.

All waste food used to go either to pigswill which was recycled into high quality protein, or given to shelters, charities etc.

Unfortunately, following the CJD scare, everyone became ludicrously overcautious, and as for giving food to the poor, health and safety have instilled a fear of litigation. That accounts for a lot.
In general the modern conception of human beings as being very delicate fragile creatures who don’t know how to use their eyes, taste buds and nostrils to detect good from bad, and have to have best before labels on everything again makes supermarkets cautious.

And just to clarify, I don’t see this as a panacea – that elusive element that makes everything else OK, that solves climate change and food shortages. It’s not. It’s a very specific campaign, tackling a specific issue. But it is an issue.

Emissions numbers: depending on how you count them UK emissions are in the 500 m tonnes to 800 million tonnes range. So under 1 million tonnes just ain’t a lot.

Sunny, we agree about CAP but this isn’t CAP. This is food regulations: the famous bendy bananas and all that. Far from the article showing that the EU doesn’t do this it’s about the EU relaxing the standards for some foods: while maintaining them for 75% of what we actually eat. This is the lunacy of the “Class 1 cucumbers will curve no more than 10 mm in 10 cm of length” sort of stuff: The rest must go for processing as (dependent upon the actual product) only Class 1 can be sold directly for human consumption. The waste comes from there being less demand for such foods for processing than have to be rejected by dint of these rules.

How much of this is EU and how much the supermarkets? I agree, I dunno. But the article up top says that it’s all the supermarkets. So by pointing out that some of it is idiot legislation I have at least increased the information available.

My favourite of these food regs is the “Jams, jellies, marmalades and sweet chestnut purees regulations 2004″. Under which it is a criminal offence to add essential oils of citrus to jams, extra jams, jellies and extra jellies (and of course, sweet chestnut purees) but not marmalades. Further, it is a criminal offence punishable by up to 6 months in prison and a £5,000 fine to add apple geranium leaves to jam, jellies, extra jams and jellies if they are made of any fruit other than quinces: quince jam it’s just fine.

And carrots are defined as fruit.

This is the sort of mindless nonsense you get when a Roman Law bureaucracy tries to write the rules for an entire continent. There’s 80,000 pages of this sort of shite. It’s also why Gunther Verhuegen, the Commissioner in charge at the time, said that the regulations necessary for the single market cost € 600 billion a year while the benefits of the single market are more like €150 billion a year.

I must be missing something … if 25% of food is ‘wasted’, and that amounts to 10% of emissions, wouldn’t that mean food account for 40% of emissions? I struggle to believe that.

Yes I understand the idea of wastage being in part a result of the nature of contracts between supermarkets and producers, what I’m questioning is why you think different contracts would necessarily be better for producers because clearly the prices they receive would change under contracts which required less of them.

oh and Claire, I’d like to hear you justify the implicit assumption in all this that there are meaningful quantities of unexploited opportunities to reduce waste just lying around waiting to be exploited, once supermarkets get a good ticking off from waste campaigners.

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

Then either you don’t shop in the evenings or are very atypical. Most shoppers care very much is the supermarket is empty of the things they want to buy.

Philip Hunt/Nick:
These things will very much depend on the individual supermarket, its size and where it is. As a consumer, I expect supermarkets to estimate demand as accurately as possible – because yes, when I roll into a city centre Sainsbury’s at 19:00, I would like to be able to buy chicken breasts and bread (for the sake of argument) – and I would expect there to be items left at that time of day, based on its location and customer profile. Naturally, sometimes they will overshoot – sometimes undershoot – the issue is that many of them have abandoned all pretence of customer profiling and just over-order to be safe. I suppose I should have been more careful when saying “empty shelves” – not everything goes off at the same time anyway, but I don’t mind supermarkets running out of some fresh items by store close (if they close at all). Perhaps you do, but that is your choice! I certainly don’t advocate punishing supermarkets for having food left at the end of the day, to be clear.

Luis Enrique:
Yes, spot-on – if food eaten in restaurants is included, EIPRO estimates that 41 percent of greenhouse gas emissions come from producing, transporting, storing and preparing food. And there really are a lot of opportunities, which should be tackled in the order of the “natural waste hierarchy” – reduction, redistribution, livestock feeding, then alternatives to landfill. But there are a lot of groups where effective changes could be made – do you want me to give you examples from all of them?

Trofim:
Food and mouth did the most damage in terms of onerous legislation – but yes, we need to make it OK for farmers to feed pigs swill again. That would definitely help. Like I said, I’m not unaware of these other areas to tackle – but as a layperson, I don’t feel able to organise an all-encompassing campaign, nor do I think it would be successful. I just want to show the government that enough people care about the ways supermarkets operate.

I believe that restaurants are meant to be a lot more energy efficient than home cooking (from the economist a while back). so how about removing the penalising taxes on restaurant services so that more people eat out more often too. There are quite a lot of things we could do which would actually decrease waste and improve services as well. Many of these things need not be trade offs.

Buy less food but more often. Change sell by dates. Allow supermarkets to give food to charities and/or pig farmers. Allow all food harvested to be sold unless it is rotten. Eat according to season and locality. Teach people how to cook. Except one cannot any food one wants, anytime of the day and week.

Sunny H . Toyota and most of the japanese manufacturing economy based their quality control on stats. Stats are used extensively in the mining, quarrying and oil businesses.

During the esarly 90s there was concern the former USSR could suffer from starvation. The major problem was not food production but storage,transport and distribution. The FCO employed several senior managers from British supermarket chains to advise the USSR on how to solve food distribution problems.

I agree with all members .Super market is waste of food.some time people do not get quality as they should after money they are spending.

27
No, it would not be a good idea to allow farmers to feed swill to pigs again, for the same reason it was stopped – Swill often contains the remains of pig meat, pork etc, this can contain swine vesicular, which is not killed by cooking. Althouth SV cannot be passed-on to other species, if can, obviously, be passed back to pigs who consume infected swill.