Food for thought

The battle against food waste is being undermined by supermarket chains’ strict visual criteria for vegetables and fruit, reports

RETAILERS are leaving farmers out of pocket by rejecting good quality vegetables that have a wonky appearance, a food science expert has warned.

As the EU vows to ramp up efforts to curb food waste in agriculture, Professor Nick Holden, School of Biosystems and Food Engineering at UCD, says relaxing retailer quality criterion for the domestic market is a logical first step.

The Irish Farmer’s Association are also calling on retailers to show “more understanding” towards growers particularly during periods of turbulent weather which may damage the quality of their crops.

Meanwhile, a Bia Food Initiative, known as FoodCloud Hubs, is now offering farmers a solution for “ugly” surplus food that doesn’t make the supermarket grade.

Speaking to the Farming Independent, Professor Holden said the criteria for unprocessed foods are “too strict”.

“We have been miseducated into believing that minor, unimportant flaws should cause us to reject a product. That is far too strict,” he said.

“It’s unsustainable. I don’t think it’s possible to have a system where you get a high enough proportion of the product to a quality standard for a reasonable amount of investment of inputs,” he said.

Although Professor Holden couldn’t definitively say whether this proportion of waste is having a significant impact on the country’s food waste levels as a whole, he says farmers on the ground are taking a financial hit.

Recent figures from the Environmental Protection Agency show that an estimated 509,900 tonnes of food waste (251,000t household plus 258,900t food services) is generated in Ireland every year.

“At the end of the day the farmer is the one who usually picks up the tab on that discount. The farmer isn’t paid the same amount per kilo for the wonky veg as the other veg even though they had to put in exactly the same amount to produce it,” he said.

“The quality criteria should be on the nutrition, not the aesthetics,” he said.

Professor Holden, who recently co-authored a paper on food waste in Ireland, says the consumer’s understanding of waste is misconstrued.

“We use the word waste to describe all sorts of different things in the food chain, some of which are genuinely waste but most of which are not, they are only waste in terms of the very open and subjective definition that the European Union uses,” he said.

The waste directive definition is that if the owner or stakeholder no longer wants something it can be regarded as waste.

“Just because I don’t want it doesn’t mean that it’s waste, it could be very useful,” he said.

Vytenis Andriukaitis, EU Commissioner for Health and Food Safety recently made an emotive plea to EU farmers to join the battle against food waste.

Farmers were responsible for around nine million tonnes (10pc) of all food wasted in the EU in 2015.

In order to truly tackle the issue, Professor Holden says all stakeholders in the value chain, from farm field to supermarket, need to educate the consumer to recalibrate their expectations.

“I don’t think the retailer should be forcing the consumer to only see the perfect product and they shouldn’t be requiring the farmer to produce only a perfect product and as consumers we should be educated to understand what should be acceptable,” he said.

Last month, IFA President Joe Healy expressed concern at the discounting of potatoes by a number of retailers in the run up to Christmas.

“This illustrates the scant disregard which some retailers have for the primary producer of Quality Assured Irish grown product. Their sole aim is to drive footfall with no appreciation of the impact which these retail practices have further down the supply chain,” he said.

Pat Farrell, IFA Horticulture Chairman, said if retailers kept

RETAILERS SHOULDN’T BE FORCING CONSUMERS TO ONLY SEE THE PERFECT PRODUCT