FOOD WASTAGE

Today there was a report out, perhaps unexpectedly, from the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, talking about the amount of food wasted around the world.  Their horrific, key statistic is that as much as 50% of the food grown remains unconsumed and therefore, the report says, that it's not that the world needs more farmers and farmland to feed the hungry, so much as more efficient storage and usage and less picky consumers.

One element of food wastage, the report adds - and this applies really only to the developed west - is that 'Use by' dates are too tight causing supermarkets (for example) to throw away vast quantities of perfectly edible produce.  The obvious suggestion, therefore, is that such dates should be lengthened.  But I wonder whether there's counter-intuitive path?

At the moment, I understand that charitable food banks and their equivalents, depend to a considerable degree on this out-of-date food to feed their 'customers'.  The process is not efficient, the food banks are no way as full as they could or, in a caring society, should be.  I assume, with some justification I trust, that part of the problem here is speed of distribution and also a perfectly reasonable concern about feeding the poor with potentially bad food.  Some shades of the adulterated flour that was one of the staples of the British Victorian poor, leading to many cases of rickets. 

So how about this?  What about shortening the sell-by dates, say by a day or two?  This would mean that we would be certainly that discarded food would be perfectly edible - certainly so - and could be used for any charitable purpose without fear that one was penalizing the poorest.  My suggestion is in some ways akin to a charitable tithe where, for example, the price of an item is supplemented by a few pence (or pounds on something expensive)  with the excess earmarked for charitable causes.

I agree that such a move would cost retailers money, a hard ask in these straitened times, but somehow I doubt that it would cost as much, anything like as much, as a simple calculation of the percentage reduction of sell-time would suggest.

Cameron's 'Big Society' concept, despite some strong values, seems to have fallen from conversation these days, except when used by critics in a snide way.  Such a move as the one I suggest, might help with its renaissance and thus gain real support from the powers that be.