Genuine, unadulterated good news has been the scarcest of all commodities of late, unless of course you include the recent spell of good weather.
So for that alone, today’s landmark move by four UK supermarkets to launch a major new collaboration to tackle food poverty is like a breath of fresh air.
And when you consider the hornets’ nest of politics, outdated regulations and different vested interests involved in the food waste and surplus arena, the push by Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Morrisons and Waitrose is even more of a notable achievement.
As the bosses of these companies admitted when The Grocer broke the news of this unparalleled campaign on Friday, the “highly competitive” nature of the food industry has a habit of getting in the way of itself when it comes to fighting for good causes in a truly joined-up manner.
Hopefully, this is just the start of bigger things to come. The Let’s Make a Meal of It campaign, which kicks off today, could, in future years, go to involve several more or – whisper it quietly – potentially even all of the UK’s major food retailers.
A new era of food surplus
It’s understood talks are already underway, led by the Alliance Food Sourcing initiative (set up by the IGD, FareShare and The Felix Project in November last year), which could see this become a major part of the calendar for all the leading retailers, raising many millions of pounds to help fight food poverty.
Whether this is the beginning of a new era of harmony in the food surplus and redistribution sector, however, remains to be seen, despite this positive start by the new body under its director Nicola Robinson.
The other good news is that 32 major food businesses have already signed up to be part of the initiative, and while this new fundraising campaign is a very customer-facing initiative, it is the transformational work in unlocking supply chain surplus that could potentially herald the biggest gains.
In November it will be two years since King Charles launched his Coronation Food Project. It promised to “reimagine” the UK’s food supply chains and transform the way industry comes together to help the huge number of people in the UK who struggle each day to get enough food.
The bad news is that since then, the numbers have got even worse, with latest figures from the Food Foundation suggesting as many as one in seven people face going hungry in the UK , including 2.7 million children.
Thanks to the new campaign they will now have a fresh source of funding, with the initiative set to provide the equivalent of five meals for every £1 raised, thanks to the economies of scale provided by the partnership.
Food surplus vs food waste
And then there are those who are still unhappy with the very concept of Alliance Food Sourcing. They see it as the food industry deliberately creating food surplus as a means of tackling food poverty, which they see as flying in the face of reducing food waste.
Recently the campaign group Feedback kicked off a major row after saying that despite the heroics of food aid employees, food poverty could never be solved by food waste.
A report from the organisation accused the food industry of regularly dumping tens of thousands of tonnes of inedible food waste on charities, essentially using them as a “waste collection service”.
Sadly it’s the nature of the beast that this is unlikely to be the last row to dog the sector. But for now, praise must be given where it is due for the supermarkets that have put rivalries to one side for a change, and are using their massive combined reach to make a difference.
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