My name is Holly, and I am a final year Product Design student at the University of Lincoln. As a part of my final year project, I am working on creating a product or service that can help reduce the waste of fresh produce after harvesting. While conducting my research, I came across the alarming problem of food wastage at the pre-consumer level, which mainly occurs due to the strict standards set by supermarkets. To gain more insight into this issue, I have been trying to connect with local farmers to ask them about their experiences regarding this matter. I would be extremely grateful if anybody with this experience would take some time to answer a few questions related to this problem. I have tried to connect with farmers through multiple ways but have not yet had any luck, I am hoping this might bring some. Thanks.
Fresh Produce Waste and Loss
- Thread starter 20holcam
- Start date
- Location
- West Suffolk
Hi Holly, our waste potatoes go to the local cattle farmer. So it’s only a financial waste for us but a gain for his cows!
Holly, maybe I can save you a lot of time...and in turn maybe you need change the direction of your own travel.
'food waste'?
The food chain is massively complex, and singling points of waste doesn't properly explain it all.
The cheifest thing, and it is the biggest factor of all is that consumers (all of us) are lazy, fussy, ignorant and 'rich'.
I watch fruit falling from tress and rotting in public spaces, within an easy walk of a well used food bank.
Within another 5 minute stroll is an abattoir that can hardly give away offal......they've been known to send pickup loads to the kennels.
A mile the other side of the small town, so 2 miles away, a farmer does the Halloween pumpkin patch thing, where thousands of surplus pumkins lie in the field, And I suspect that come November 1st, if you asked (and looked hungry), he'd probably tell you to help yourself to a few- take a wheel barrow! (I'll bet hard coin that virtually no-one does)
He turns the pigs in once the month changes.
A mile or two down the valley you'll start coming across farmers growing veg for a big local packer, and any of them would likely tell you... it is quite a trick to get produce picked and sorted cheaply enough.
Tractor trailer outfits run the roads with 'waste' veg headed for livestock, so can it be called waste? Again, nobody within walking distance can truly be hungry.
Almost every farmer allows someone to shoot/trap various game animals to keep numbers in check.... which are then hard to 'home'.
Clearly, it isn't that city people live too far away from farmland.....this is a rural town surrounded farming.
It is the mindset of modern society.
'food waste'?
The food chain is massively complex, and singling points of waste doesn't properly explain it all.
The cheifest thing, and it is the biggest factor of all is that consumers (all of us) are lazy, fussy, ignorant and 'rich'.
I watch fruit falling from tress and rotting in public spaces, within an easy walk of a well used food bank.
Within another 5 minute stroll is an abattoir that can hardly give away offal......they've been known to send pickup loads to the kennels.
A mile the other side of the small town, so 2 miles away, a farmer does the Halloween pumpkin patch thing, where thousands of surplus pumkins lie in the field, And I suspect that come November 1st, if you asked (and looked hungry), he'd probably tell you to help yourself to a few- take a wheel barrow! (I'll bet hard coin that virtually no-one does)
He turns the pigs in once the month changes.
A mile or two down the valley you'll start coming across farmers growing veg for a big local packer, and any of them would likely tell you... it is quite a trick to get produce picked and sorted cheaply enough.
Tractor trailer outfits run the roads with 'waste' veg headed for livestock, so can it be called waste? Again, nobody within walking distance can truly be hungry.
Almost every farmer allows someone to shoot/trap various game animals to keep numbers in check.... which are then hard to 'home'.
Clearly, it isn't that city people live too far away from farmland.....this is a rural town surrounded farming.
It is the mindset of modern society.
- Location
- DD9.
Did your research involve reading the WWF/Tesco report on food waste that found Tesco doesn’t contribute to food waste?
If the answer is yes, then look a bit harder and you’ll see that they included categories such as inedible parts of plants (stalks, leaf, root) in the “on farm” figure, as well as “unsold” product.
So if you imagine a bag of sprouts, the “waste” element of that attributed to “on farm” includes the 3ft long stalk and all its leaves. Inedible to humans. Is that waste, given livestock will consume them and turn them into high value meat? Or is it a byproduct, used in the the cycle of life that gets turned into food and fertiliser by an animal?
Then think of that bag of sprouts sitting forlornly in the Tesco coldstore into the new year because their forecasting was out and no one wanted it. What happens? Gets plonked on the shelf with a yellow sticker for a bit, maybe attempt to give it away, offer to food banks, no one at a food bank will take sprouts. So what? Bags aren’t emptied out, that’s too expensive, they’re chucked into trade waste bin and land filled.
That’s actual waste.
Yet Tesco/WWF chock that up to “on farm food waste” because Tesco didn’t actually sell it. It hadn’t been “retailed”. But who created the waste? Not the farmer, not the packer, they fulfilled their orders, the waste happened beyond the farm gate.
If you’re looking at designing something to reduce on farm waste of fresh produce, I’d suggest firstly a bullshite filter for UK Retailer’s press releases and secondly a reset button for WWF who have totally lost sight of their founding principles and are being played for fools.
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