Supermarkets have been urged to step up their battle against food waste, after a report by MPs and church leaders claimed supply chain inefficiencies in terms of redistributing surplus food was letting the poor go hungry.
The report, Feeding Britain, by an all-party group of MPs and backed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, calls for supermarkets to play a key role in a co-ordinated national system to support food banks.
The report includes shocking reports of waste, including nearly 10,000 Cornish pasties which were wasted by Morrisons because a supply truck turned up 17 minutes late. In another incident 10 tonnes of tomatoes from Kent were rejected by Tesco because they were too big.
The report calls on supermarkets to experiment with new ways to meet the need for fresh food as part of a new national network called Feeding Britain.
It also recommends the creation of social supermarkets to allow people on low incomes to register and shop for heavily discounted food from manufacturers’ surplus produce.
Andrew Opie, BRC director of food and sustainability said that redistribution of surplus retail food only made a “small contribution to alleviate poverty”, adding it was “not a solution to hunger in the UK.”
“As the report highlights there are many issues that need to be addressed to tackle the underlying causes,” he added. “However, we currently have both food poverty and food surpluses and retailers have proved very willing to step up and make sure that useable excess stock goes to charities and redistribution organisations across the UK.”
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