The problem
Orange dust sweeps up into the air as the truck settles to a halt. ”Oh no those shoes won’t do” Lou Revelant says looking down at my ballet flats. “I’ll be fine” I say, after all I’ve visited countless farms wearing similar footwear.
“Ouch! ouch ouch!” I say as I take two steps and enormous bindies spike my feet. “Ok maybe I will invest in a pair of farm shoes” I concede.
Where am I? I’m six hours out of Sydney at Griffith in the Riverina region exploring a story that I’ve wanted to do for a long time now. The seed for this idea first came to me when I was visiting Tasmania last year and I saw a beautifully formed head of broccoli make its way into a bin. I asked what was wrong with it, to me it was a picture perfect specimen and I would have certainly picked it up if I had seen it at the store. It was too big, I was told. I kept thinking about that head of broccoli – I choose broccoli that has a large head because I like the florets and yet supermarkets were stocking smaller headed broccoli with long stems.
The head of broccoli that was deemed “too large” and off spec
Food Bank
Minimising the amount of food waste has been the primary objective of a charity organisation called Food Bank. Each state in Australia has a branch of Food Bank and they collect tonnes of food produced by farmers and production companies that doesn’t even make it to supermarket shelves. And why doesn’t it make it to the supermarket? Because it is “off specification.”
I was curious to explore it more and find out what “off specification” really meant. Is it the idea that supermarkets think they know what we want? Or is it that they don’t really care what we want and make a decision for what we will buy based on other factors (more heads of broccoli sold as we want more florets?). Or do we really know what we want?
Then a call came from Todd Connolly, national manager of market planning, from Komatsu who I had known at his previous job. He had a proposition for me. Komatsu had just donated a two tonne Toyota ute to be used in the Riverina area that made it possible for Food Bank to do their job. Would I be interested in going to see what Food Bank do? The Riverina region is crucial for Food Bank as it produces so much of the fruit and vegetable for the NSW region and around Australia.
Food Bank state offices run the day to day business which collects the food and they truck this into a central point in the state (in Sydney’s case, in Wetherill Park) and any registered charity can come along and “shop” either for free or at a nominal rate (non essentials like coffee are charged at $1 a kilo handling fee, all of the fruit, vegetables, bread and staples are free). On Fridays, Food Bank uploads a list of produce available and charities can take a look at the list and shop there from Monday to Wednesday.
Food Bank’s head office in Sydney lobbies the government for monetary and facility support like coolrooms and freight concessions. Each government helps to differing degrees and Lou mentions that the Victorian government is particularly helpful whilst the NSW government provides little to no assistance. At a grass roots level, there is another group of concerned citizens who head up the Waste Not Want Not volunteer group which supports Food Bank and helps to retrieve this excess food. This group, founded in the Riverina’s Hillston area is integral in getting a lot of the food to Sydney and uses old fashioned people power with volunteers picking and gathering produce.
Food Bank is slightly different to OzHarvest as they store food whereas OzHarvest do not store food and move it from the donor to the charity on the same day. Food Bank also deal in much larger quantities like tonnes- an example is corporate donor Goodman Fielder who bake 1,500 loaves of bread for Food Bank each day as well as donating surplus loaves. In NSW alone they distribute 3,000 tonnes of food and 40,000 meals a year with 670 companies donating 19,000 tonnes of food. According to Food Bank, 2 million Australians a year rely on food relief and half of those are children.
Supermarkets such as Coles, Woolworths and Aldi also donate – there was a recent oversupply of baked beans as a line was pulled from shelves. “Best Before” dates must be observed (although anything past its use by date can’t be given out) and any food donated must have a list of ingredients on it. The Good Samaritan Act protects them to a degree although all measures of care must be taken with the food. Transport is the number one problem for Food Bank – getting the food to a central point incurs the most cost given how large Australia is and Food Bank’s staff is made up of a mix of twelve paid workers with the rest as volunteers.
The Riverina Food Bowl
Oversupply is a serious problem for the Riverina region at the moment. When there is oversupply, the big supermarkets get choosier in their specifications and conversely when there is little supply, they interpret their specifications more loosely. The Riverina is going through a period of oversupply and that means that for some farmers, it isn’t viable for them to pick crop as it costs more to do that. One farmer that I met had to plough in 3,000 tonnes of pumpkins.
There are about 100-150 semi-trailers that leave the Riverina area each day, five days a week with produce. Previously the fruit and vegetable available to Food Bank was the leftover from Flemington markets which was variable in quantity and didn’t allow them to keep a steady supply. The people from the Waste Not Want Not group saw the level of waste from talking to the farmers in the area and sought to help redistribute this valuable produce to the needy.
What is in it for the farmers? Well Food Bank issues them with a tax receipt and since farmers work on a five year rolling cycle, this can help them with tax within that period. They supply the farmers with collapsible bins (supplied to them for free by CHEP) which Lou uses the two tonne ute to deliver. Some farmers such as Lachlan Produce harvest about 30,000 tonnes of potatoes a year and donate about 120 tonne a year to Food Bank. Sometimes a rice farmer will donate a paddy to Food Bank and they will then sell the rice onto Sunrice who will harvest it for them.
I arrive in Griffith, just over an hour’s flight from Sydney or six hours by car and it is straight to work. Food Bank hates to see anything go to waste and as long as there is about a bin’s worth (about 400kgs) they will pick it up. We’re headed to Yanco in Leeton to the Yanco Agricultural Institute where they are trialling more pest resistant onions so that they don’t have to use insecticides which can be costly.
The Riverina grows about 95% of NSW’s onion crop so these trials are important in this area. Today there are about 40 or so volunteers on hand today to help pick the onions. They are from the local Waste Not Want Not Group and have volunteered their time to help harvest these onions which would have otherwise gone to waste. At the end of the morning, there were about 10,000 onions picked.
After the picking, the Waste Not Want Not people adjourn to the Murrumbidgee rural studies centre where the Country Womens Association have put on an impressive spread of sandwiches, cakes, pies, scones and lamingtons. The CWA enjoy legendary status as holders of the secrets of the scone and sponge cake and I’m delighted to meet them and taste some of the tasty sweet and savoury scones, sandwiches and slices as well as a cup of tea.
I get a lovely box full of goodies that are produced in the area including some rice products from Sunrice and a fantastic organic rice from Randall organic rice (95% of Australian rice is grown in Griffith).
I’m also given some wines from Toorak Wines under the name Willandra Estate and Lillpilly wines in an interesting tramillon variety as wines as a lot of NSW wine grapes are grown here. In my basket is fresh lavender and pecans from the garden of the CWA secretary Doreen Riley. The variety and amount of produce means that the recent talks to change the water system at the Murray Darling River impacts the farmers and community directly.
I’d love to stay longer and talk but Lou hurries me along. After all I have lots of produce to see and I want to check out what exactly makes up an off spec product! Jeanine thoughtfully puts together some plates of goodies so that I don’t miss out and we are on our way.
What does “off spec” mean?
Our next stop is Punterieros who supply onions to Food Bank. The staff are busy sorting out the saleable onions from the unsaleable and the thing that makes the crucial difference is the outer layer of brown. The inside is still fine and the onions are firm, heavy and not soft. However supermarkets will not accept onions unless they have the outer layer of skin on (which we usually remove when we cook with them).
A ripe Valencia orange
Our next stop is Aussie Gold Citrus which is a family run business. Mum Kath is a fantastic cook and host and her sons Frank and Michael take care of the citrus business. Currently they are processing Valencia oranges. They use a machine that takes ten photographs of each orange and sorts them according to size, blemish and colour.
However Valencia oranges are not always orange all the way around as they develop a green colour as a sunscreen. We look for the greenest one we can find and cut it open and it is sweet and full of juice inside and most definitely ripe. However since Valencia oranges are the only ones that turn green as sunscreen many people assume that Valencies aren’t ripe unless they are orange. Valencias are one of the best oranges to juice with as the juice doesn’t turn sour in time as other juices will. They donate 1-2 bins a week during the season which equates to 400-800 kilo a week.
I wasn’t quite prepared for the amount of fruit that was discarded at the next stop, at Amaland Agco where melons of all varieties are harvested. There’s a semi truck full of rockmelons outside and inside, dozens of workers are sorting out honeydew melons. They arrive by the binful and they process 200-250 tonne a day. We watch as one worker sorts out the melons which are washed and then come down a conveyor belt that spins them around so that the workers can spot any blemishes.
Honeydew discarded because of this one spot on the skin
We retrieved the above honeydews which were dumped and ask the worker what the issue was. He points to the single spot above, that tiny spot on the skin which you don’t even eat. Other things like these blemishes also rule them out as well as odd shape.
Also discarded because of the odd shape
Discarded melons
Then Lou gets up on the semi trailer to take a photo of the fruit that hasn’t made the grade and there is an astounding amount-almost as far as the eye can see. This will all be dumped on a farm even though some might have as minimal a damage as the photos above which doesn’t affect the inside at all.
Another shame is that Food Bank simply cannot take it all and can only take a maximum of three bin’s worth or a tonne a day. So as a result, two semi trailer’s worth or 40 tonnes of melons are discarded a day – and this is just from one producer in one region!
The Waste Not Want Not group
The next day we take the drive out to Hillston where the Waste Not Want Not Group idea started and I am chatting to some of the local committee members over a lovely breakfast spread at the local chaplain Julie Greig’s house. Waste Not Want Not started in April 2011 they delivered 250 tonne of produce within the first five months. The local community is eager to take action and help gather items. People can “jump in when they want,” Julie says. “I have little old ladies that stop me in the street saying that they want to help.”
Suppliers also donate non waste or non off spec produce and they’ve also received donations of sheep and grain from farmers. And I’m given a lovely little jar of quandong jam from a 80 year old local man John Rose who has his own secret location for quandongs!
Our next stop is at Watson Partners where Tim Watson grows watermelon, pumpkin and beetroot among others. At the moment the shed is full of watermelons. And have you noticed that in the last few years, those long watermelons with the black pips from our childhood have disappeared and there are now only those round, seedless watermelons? That’s because the stores say that consumers don’t want watermelons with seeds anymore and the same goes for grapes. The long seeded watermelons still have to be grown because these are the male watermelons while the rounded ones are females. “A crying shame” Lou says “I like the taste of the long ones better” and everyone nods in agreement. They can’t sell them and they are ready at an earlier time than the round seedless watermelons so they just stay in the field unpicked.
Hail damage on the watermelon
Tim tells us that they are allowed a certain amount of out of spec produce and this depends on where the bins are going-the buyers at one supermarket in Victoria are said to be stricter because they’re less experienced and will reject watermelons based on the smallest flaws. Their specs don’t change but their interpretation of the specs does depending on supply. “The thing that gives me the s*&ts is that I’ve never seen anyone eat a watermelon skin,” Tim says. He also points out that when they are sliced up for sale, cling wrap usually obscures any marks on the skin so the consumer doesn’t realise that there is a perceived flaw.
Marks from the “thrip” which is a small insect which appears only on the skin will mean that this watermelon will not be considered suitable. However to get rid of thrip they need to spray more chemicals so that their produce is saleable. “Consumers need to understand that to get rid of things like this, we have to spray more,” Tim says, which they don’t want to do as pesticides cost money and consumers generally don’t want them used.
Julie, John and Lou talk to Tim about coming out and picking the surplus male watermelons and they discuss the logistics of doing this. The WNWN group come with their own insurance but they need to make sure that whatever they do with their suppliers doesn’t cause them any inconvenience because this could mean that the supplies dry up.
The long watermelon
When we’re out in the field I ask to try one of the long watermelons and some of the round one. I’m curious to know, are they very different? Tim slices open a long watermelon and I realise that it has been a long time since I’ve seen one of these classic melons from childhood where you made a competition out of spitting the pips. He then slices open a seedless one.
The long seeded melon is bursting with flavour – you know how when you revisit an ice cream or a lolly that you used to like from childhood but it’s never as good? Well, this is exactly as good as what you ate as a child. The long melons have a softer texture but a divine sweetness and are just dripping with juice. The seedless watermelon isn’t quite as sweet or juicy and has a firmer texture – it’s still good but for flavour, nothing beats a long seeded watermelon. And I know this sounds really strange but a few nights after visiting Griffith I dreamt about finding a place that sells long watermelons and I woke up very excited!
The white dots in the field are all the watermelons which will get ploughed as they won’t make the grade or they are long watermelons
Our next stop is Lachlan produce where they grow potatoes-and a very large amount of them go to waste. The manager Nathan Plant is originally from the U.K. and he says that the specs are extreme and unrealistic. The issue is that in a country as wide as Australia where there is a wide variety of climates, we can get supply so we can demand more of the produce and farmers. He would like to see the specs go lower and he demonstrates this when we have a look at the myriad ways in which the potatoes are sorted.
The lacy pattern on some of the potato skins means that these are not suitable for sale
We walk past a line of similarly sized and uniform potatoes – these will go to the supermarket. These need to be between 120-350grams per potato. Nathan points to a conveyor belt full of cocktail potatoes. “I can’t get rid of them” he says, “nobody wants them.” He washes off some of the cocktail potatoes and points to the lacy pattern on the skin which apparently nobody wants so these are discarded with a small amount sold off to make “Skinns” brand potato chips. These are skinny chips which are actually made up of potatoes that have been mashed and then recooked to produce a 75% lower fat potato chip.
He used to sell them to manufacturers that would tin them but the cheaper overseas imports have meant a decrease in volume. I’m surprised as I love cooking with smaller potatoes as they’re very quick to cook with. Conversely the extremely large ones used to go to manufacturers to make potato scallops but overseas imports are less expensive. They throw out 1,500 tonnes of potatoes a year and Nathan tells Lou “You could have 1,000 tonnes of potatoes a year if you wanted.” Again, transporting them is the issue and Food Bank can’t afford to take them all. We have a look out in the field where the WNWN group look at collecting some of the new potato line that is being tested.
They’re also growing Australian garlic which is a good example of a crop that was virtually wiped out of Australia due to cheaper overseas imports. Now, several years later, people realise that the imported quality is poor and want Australian garlic but many of the garlic farmers were taken out of business by the imports and their lower prices. And in the box I was given from Leeton, I was given a bag of Robertson garlic which was wonderful – full of flavour with a real aroma to it.
Other donations
Our second last stop in the Riverina is at Riverina Grove where Lou discusses the delivery of some jams. These jams developed a foam at the top so that they aren’t saleable but they’re still good to eat. The owner of Riverina Grove, also called Lou, is also going to donate a fig conserve that didn’t set and will be relabelled as fig sauce.
The unsaleable jam
So now that I’ve gotten an idea of how much food goes to waste I decide to take a look and see where it goes after it leaves the Riverina.
Food Bank’s Warehouse
Shortly after, I visit Food Bank’s Wetherill Park office which is attached to their 2,000m² warehouse space. Registered charities can come along to warehouse shop during the week from 8am-2pm. The range is varied and we see some of the produce hot off the trucks from Riverina as well as other corporate donations.
The onions collected in Leeton
We watch as milk is unloaded from a truck using forklifts and 4,000 litres of milk is donated a week from National Foods. In a corner, a team of volunteer workers from the community help to sort 10,000 pairs of donated socks into 1 kilo bags of socks so each charity receives a mix of sock sizes. Food Bank also carries non food items like nappies, toilet paper, tissues and face cream although this accounts for 10% of their total stock. 60% of their total stock is delivered to charity agencies in regional areas.
Out of spec pumpkins
Out of spec rockmelons
Gerry Anderson shows the relabelled smoked salmon
We see the boxes of onions that were picked in the Riverina the morning that I arrived. There are watermelons, rockmelons and pumpkins from the area. There are also donated products that are either end of line or discontinued items or items that are best before. There are “collaborative” items like pasta which are made with the help of several companies with each donating components towards the final product.
A large delivery from a supermarket with non food items. The box packaging has been broken so they are no longer salable
For collaborative and regularly donated items, they are aware of when these are coming but often they will get a call from a donor letting them know that there is something for them. For storage, there are two large refrigerated rooms as well as one large freezer room. In the refrigerated room are creme caramels, yogurts, other dairy products and watermelons and in the freezer room there are items like smoked salmon. They received these before they reached their best before date so they have frozen it and relabelled it to let people know how long they have.
All fruit, vegetables and bread are free while milk is 25c a litre, tinned items 50c a kilo and items such as coffee (instant or coffee beans) are $1 a kilo. All money earned is put back into transport costs and wages. In NSW the transport subsidy has almost halved from this year as compared to 2009-2010.
The Beneficiaries
I decide to pay a visit to one of the beneficiaries of Food Bank. The Salvation Army’s Street Level program uses much of the food that Food Bank supplies them with in both the store and the cafe. They feed up to 5,500 people a week either breakfast or lunch five days a week. I arrive as the kitchen staff are preparing the food. Today’s meal is a mixture of food from Food Bank as well as fish from the local TAFE. Cafeteria style lunches are $2 per person and breakfasts range from $3 to $5 and these are cooked to order. Coffee, tea and water are available during the day.
Kristy (sitting down) talking to corporate volunteers
I talk to Kristy who is the kitchen manager and has a team of volunteer staff to assist her. Today they also have some additional help from a 47 person corporate team from KPMG who will divide their time between the centre’s four floors. Some will come down here and help in the kitchen while others will tend to the store.
Kitchen volunteers
Open since October 2005, the store which is adjacent to the cafe, is stocked with a mixture of Food Bank’s food which they order online and have sent to them as well as “Black and Gold” generic items which need to be purchased elsewhere as they are staples. A delivery from Food Bank has just arrived and Robert the store manager shows me the most popular items. Because much of the customer base don’t have housing and some may lack cooking skills, the most popular products are the ready made items like Chicken Tonight or microwavable meals.
People are given a voucher from welfare assistance and can shop there to buy groceries. What would cost $60 at a supermarket would cost $20 here and 20-30 people a day visit the store, take a trolley and buy goods from basics like milk to frozen meat to nappies.
It is 12 o’clock and lunch is served and there is a steady stream of people lining up. Today there is a choice of two soups, a main course with fish, tomato pasta and vegetables and a banana pudding with caramel sauce. The simpler meals tend to be the most popular like sausages, gravy and mash although Kristy tries to keep it balanced and introduces fresh food as much as possible. Much of the fruit from Food Bank is enjoyed as a snack during the day where it is cut up for people to eat. They trialled the fruit and vegetables in the store but found that it wasn’t as popular.
Each person lines up for their meal and one man hands over a card where he is $5 in debit. “That’s ok, you can pay tomorrow” Kristy says.
The Solution?
The issue is a complex one – consumers are used to seeing perfect uniformly shaped produce for years displayed prettily on supermarket shelves so anything beyond the norm or perceived norm isn’t wanted. Add to this the notion that consumers are also being given standards by supermarkets based on what supermarkets think that the consumer wants.
Supermarkets however are ultimately businesses with shareholders to answer to and they don’t want to buy stock that they think will stay on the shelves so they create rigid and hard to achieve standards because if they don’t, the stock won’t sell. The farmers are forced by the monopoly that the supermarkets hold to adhere to these, destroying tonnes of valuable and good crops each day. Food Bank can only do so much to help alleviate the wastage problem as transportation costs prove insurmountable.
So tell me Dear Reader, what do you think of the standards of fruit and vegetables in the supermarket? Too tight, too loose or just right? And would you have rejected the melon with the spot above if you had seen it at the store? And do you think that we waste too much food?
And if you were as disturbed as much as I was by the amount of waste, please share this article with friends x
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139 Comments | Add your own
This blog post makes me sad but thank you for writing about this topic.
I once went dumpster diving with a friend. Ok, so first the supermarkets say things are not good enough, right size, right colour. Then you look in the dumpster bin and there’s more waste in there! My friend picked out some bread, tomatoes, apples. All perfectly fine to eat! But apparantely dumpster diving is not allowed. So yeah, just let it all go to waste.
Thanks for this really interesting and insightful post! I hate to see our farmers being backed into a corner when it comes to selling their produce. Ultimately we all lose as farmers focus on growing the limited stock required by the supermarkets.
Great article – so sad to see all this food going to waste. I don’t think I am too picky with my fruit and vegetables but after reading this I hope to be less concerned about small imperfections. Hopefully people start becomming less concerned with how their fruit and vegetables look so we can reduce our waste!
My husband is a retired fruit veg market agent and is now FBank volunteer in Brisbane going out to the Brisbane markets every morning to sure up continuous donations. He is dedicated to Foodbank.
Excellent theme. Food is about pleasure but also survival, politics and social responsibility. Every check-out receipt is highly monitored by the food industry. Every time we shop and cook we are casting a vote for the kind of world we want to live in.
I think the whole world wastes too much of food.
I try to minimize that in my kitchen – making the best out of leftovers.
Oh, this is such a big topic. The problem is that the supermarkets are holding the farmers to ransom and not paying them what they deserve to be paid. Supermarkets don’t know what we want as I’m constantly asking for things they don’t stock or do stock but don’t have in the size/quantity I want it. The solution would be to ban supermarkets from being able to sell fresh produce. Then everything would go back to the way it was, farmers would be able to stay on their land and these ridiculous ‘standards’ would be shown the door xx
I have known about the food bank for a number of years now, and as i was formally a chef and know about food wastage i think its a fantastic idea, not too sure about nsw, but in melbourne a lot of restaurants are also involved with the food bank here.
Nice one Lorraine.
Well presented story.
Yes, I think Stupid-markets have too much power, farmers are beholden to them and customers are treated like idiots. I shop at farmers markets almost totally now. Thanks again.
Lorraine, I think this might just be your most eye-opening and best article to date.
It had never occurred to me that there would be waste on this enormous scale in the produce industry.
It’s frankly disgusting that the supermarkets have conditioned the public into thinking that oddly shaped or slightly blemished produce is not good enough.
What gets to me is that they blame the people – they say people don’t want large broccoli and people don’t want seeded watermelon. That is bull! It’s their fault, they’ve taught us what to expect.
Thank heavens for this organisation, but it seems to me that there needs to be a social change spearheaded by the supermarkets themselves.
I think its great that Australia is helping to feed people, but its a crying shame when tonnes of good stuff gets discarded because of a so-called blemish. It’s total rubbish that the consumers don’t want it, absolute hogwash in my opinion. And thanks for clearing up the disappearance of the long watermelon, I’d wondered why we don’t see them anymre – more hogwash!! I hate seedless fruits especially grapes and I avoid buying them like the plague. Fruit is supposed to have seeds – that is the way God made them. The seeds are there so that more fruit can be produced. I think its so sad! And your story has made me sad, because it makes me wonder how we got this way.
Interesting article. I think some of the food standards are ridiculous, especially when it is rare to find unblemished fruit and veg in my local Woolworths.
My disabled daughter helps pack boxes one day a week at our local food bank.in the afternoon she helps deliver the boxes .
She gets “paid” with a bag of food items. She absolutely loves doing it.
Hi,
Love this article, from the far to the plate with all the detours. Recently i was in coles here in Qld and found some cheese that was past it’s best before date and wanted to get it reduced but still buy it. They couldn’t sell it to me… but after some communication, found out that Coles only donate to Second Bite
http://www.secondbite.org/ Unfortunately, they don’t seem to be picking up the foods here yet…
I can’t remember the last time I bought fruit/veg at a Coles or woollies. Organic produce is all higgildy piggildy, which makes me want to buy it even more! If I’m cooking a feast and want a big pumpkin, i’ll can choose a big one. Cooking for 1? Choose the little runty one.
What a wonderful story. I would never have rejected the melon for that one tiny spot! Also I wish that those long watermelons with the seeds were a choice that we could make. It seems that “corporate” is making our decisions for us. I also prefer to buy the cocktail potatoes, yet they have decided that we won’t want them. Perhaps it’s time for someone to stand up and help out the farmers and bring this out of spec produce to the market place for the consumers to decide. We could help the farmers, and also break the monopoly that the big supermarkets have on the marketplace.
Great story Lorraine!
I am surprised that the “big supermarkets” would reject the food you have shown here- especially when it looks ten times better than a lot of the “fresh” fruit and veg that they sell. A very thoughtful and interesting piece.
OMG, Lorraine, that was a fascinating eye-opener! We definitely waste too much food!!!!! I wish our local Feed the Hungry program could have even a tiny fraction of the out of spec produce you showed. I do love the idea of the Waste Not Want Not Group though–fantastic efforts being made.
You can see there is a real difference between farmers fresh. Looking good.
Thank you for such an informative and thought provoking post, today.
SSG xxx
Sydney Shop Girl blog
I loved this post! It’s amazing how much food we waste every day. The fact that there are people who are starving and/or families who are struggling to pay for fresh food when so much is thrown away is a tragedy.
I’m absolutely shocked and appalled! I had a small idea about the large supermarkets & their decisions regarding so called perfection! Its so sad to see our world so deluded by them! This type of message needs to be marketed by shows such as Masterchef and also consumers need to be educated by the big chain stores, it’s the only way people may realise it’s the quality of the produce not the look. I loathe buying fruit and veg from the big chains, as although it may look pretty, the taste is so bland or it goes off so quickly! This is something I will definitely tell others about! Thanks NQN for opening my eyes to reality!
Thanks for this thought provoking article. We really do waste too much food unnecessarily.
Wow fantastic article – have to say I became very emotional at the thought of so much waste when there is so much poverty in the world. I have bought marked fruit and would love small potatoes and look for big heads of broccoli – supermarkets need to educate their customers, we would not know and therefore look for perfection when it isn’t needed. I think a documentary on this should be aired. Supermarkets could run videos by the farmers educating us the public. Well done to you for bringing this to the attention of your avid readers.
Highly respectable post and personal investigation, Lorraine… mega props to you.
I’d love to help out and volunteer one day.
I totally agree that the control which buyers/supermarkets wield in terms of dictating what “we want” is absurd and leads to a tremendous waste and hardship for farmers. It’s a no win situation… I hardly see who is gaining except for the supermarkets creating false limits on produce and thus bumping up prices.
How badly I want to live on my own self sufficient farm and live off my own crops. Being vego makes it easy… no slaughtering necessary lol. Just climb trees all day and munch munch munch.
Ahhh bliss.
Great report Lorraine. I miss those long melons too and I am shocked to hear why they dissappeared. Growing up in a country town there was always a farmer with his tractor by the side of the road with the long watermelons on the trailer. So much flavour!! I have found the seedless round ones to lack flavour. It is great to see that there are organisations helping to distribute the food that doesn’t meet “specifications”. I think the supermarkets have too tight a definition of standards. A skin blemish is not going to affect the quality of the flesh.
Once again a great post Lorraine!!
This makes me so sad Lorraine. I definitely think that supermarket standards are too tight.
Are we all really that silly that we think fruit and veg are so perfect, or HAVE to be? I kinda like the imperfections, as long as food is not rotten, im happy.
I’d like to think that I, and most people, wouldn’t have a problem with off-spec pumpkins… What’s a spec pumpkin anyway?
so so sad to see all that food go to waste, and you pointed out an important fact. The more perfect we want our food to look the more chemicals that are needed. Great article!
Absolutely fantastic article Lorraine! The expectations of perfection are incredibly unrealistic and unfair on the whole industry.
I would wholeheartedly support a place like this that works so hard to get great ‘waste’ food to people who need it. I hope they get wholehearted support from government departments too!
I always choose the fruit with thrip marks on the skin because it tastes sweeter! My mum taught me that.
We buy most of our vegies from the ‘specials’ stand out the front of the supermarket we use. It’s pretty clear that much of that is the out-of-spec fruit and veg. I don’t mind (I do steer clear of the seriously manky stuff, which there is occasionally).
I’m also pretty sure that’s how places like the Subi Markets in WA keep their prices down. As much out of spec as they can buy. So one answer is to avoid the big chains that demand in-spec produce!
This is an amazing story, Lorraine. The waste is just heartbreaking.
I saw a TV show on a “people’s supermarket” in the UK, which sourced produce from farmers after the large supermarkets rejected it. One item was “curly cucumbers”, and they were able to sell all the goods at well under retail levels.
Oh My God what is wrong here i never worry about a blemish on my fruit and veg i never purchase my fresh produce from a supermarket any way i like to go to local growers markets its so much cheaper the quality is good , my biggest thing is trying to eat seasonal food as i am an advocate of sustainable living , i grow some of my own and harvest from the community garden as well , the waste that goes on because of supermarket specs is deplorable and it keeps the cost of our fruit and veg artificially high because of the weeding out of sizes 1 large head of broccoli makes a great soup for 2, wonder if the farmer gets a better price for his produce i dont thinks so no wonder people are leaving the land like they are and imports are flooding the markets , it should not be allowed to happen thank go food bank and other groups are putting non inferior more flavorsome produce to good use I have to agree with you i love watermelon with seeds tastes better i never buy melons unless they have seeds i could go on adinfinitum on this thanks for doing this blog on food waste will spread the word amongst my friends
This story makes me sick to my stomach! There have been many days that I have gone hungry so that my kids can eat & seeing how much good food is wasted is heartbreaking. Supermarkets should take what they get & then donate what isn’t sold. In a country like ours there is no excuse for such waste. Keep up the good work Lorraine, once again you give us inspiration.
Lorraine what a terrible story. I nearly cried at the thought of all those melons going to waste and all those watermelons being ploughed. It’s so sad!
I wouldn’t have even noticed that spot on the melon. Why don’t supermarkets have a snob-quality section and then sell the same items, but ‘damaged’ at a less expensive price. I bet people wouldn’t mind the spot if they paid a little less.
I hardly ever buy fruit or veges from the supermarket but if I do, it’s so expensive I do hunt through for the best-looking thing.
Wow, that is one thought provoking article. Thank you.
I tend to buy my fruit and veg at a local market so we do see the not quite perfect items. I know the owner buys local produce where possible so it’s keeping locals in business as well as keeping the food miles down.
A great post! Good for you getting out there, learning and sharing in such a beautiful photographic way. I grew up in a farming area (although we were ‘townies’) and my family now live in a different but also large farming area in Qld. The produce that is thrown away is ALARMING at best and borderline criminal when you consider that people are unnecessarily hungry. A few years ago a $200K crop of tomatoes were plowed back into the ground as the manufacturer no longer wanted to go ahead with the sundried jars they were planning. And this while we in Sydney were paying near $7/kg for tomatoes that tasted terrible.
People need to be less precious about what fresh food looks like naturally as they generally taste better anyway Cannot stress the importance of local and farmers markets.
It makes me so angry how much control Coles and Woolworths have over our food production. It’s not only fruit and veg but look at all the generic product they are introducing driving out long time Australian brands as they will simply no longer stock them.
The buying specs above are far too tight. I love shopping for fruit and veg at the local farmers market and the fruit and veg there are generally the ugliest I’ve seen but the most delicious tasting.
I also lament the days of delicious watermelons. I do not buy watermelon anymore, as I find them generally tasteless. It’s very dissappointing to know that the tasty seeded ones are rotting in fields all over Australia!
I don’t know where to start with all of this … I certainly think the supermarkets have become beyond ridiculous with their standards and I’m sure most people wouldn’t even notice things like the mark on the melon or the spiderweb markings on those potatoes. Glad to finally have an answer on the watermelons – I’ve been wondering for ages what happened to the ones with flavour. Who in their right mind has decided that looks are more important than flavour in food?! This is one of many reasons why I get my produce from Aussie Farmers Direct. Although I’m sure their selection process is still not all embracing, they certainly don’t seem to abide by the same ridiculously strict guidelines that the supermarkets are.
What a wonderful story and I think one of interest to all consumers. Beautifully written on a great subject.
My husband and I have worked first hand in this side of it. We used to volunteer, go down to our central food bank, and spend all day unpacking the various items that came in////// on to the shelves, and boy did we see so much come through. Then we did twelve months working for a church group that took it out and distributed to people that needed. We used to have church funds, but were limited of course, and bought so much at $1.00 per kilo, including all the staples. Some days we would find a particular item free, like say cream, or milk or bread, but you were also limited as to how much you could have. Health wise because my husband was not well, we had to stop, but it sure showed us what was once thrown out. If I remember rightly the w.a. manager of belmont food bank got an award when we were helping there. Churches also had to go through a serious of questions and answers to make sure that they were giving out to where needed, as all food was given away, but paid for first by churches. We thoroughly enjoyed it.
There is definitely too much waste in our country. And I think it’s a real crime. I was only recently wondering about the disappointing taste of watermelons and now I have my answer. I really blame the monopoly of the two big supermarkets and I believe the way they squeeze producers is not ethical and definitely not moral. We have allowed them to put economics above good common sense and the result is wasted food. It is criminal and we need to think about the big picture whenever we buy our food.
opened my eyes… I cannot even fathom that amount of food being wasted.
Stumbling and sharing all over the place cause DAY-UM.
Lorraine, this probably IS the greatest post of your career so far and all of us from OZ should nominate you for a Medal of Australia for opening previously closed eyes! I have quietly been aware and cried about this huge waste for a long time and am only glad that some of it goes to help feed those of us less fortunate. More awareness of the situation can but help.
Since I prefer Farmers’ Markets and organic foods whenever I can get to them, I am quite used to disparate sizes and a few blemishes. I daresay it is too much to ask the big supermarkets to have twin binning for the same items: perfects at a higher price, blemished at cost + small profit! Oh, would the increasing number of pensioners and mothers with large families bless!
What hurts above all is the fact we all know how many babies and children die each day in places like Somalia from malnutrition, whilst here lovingly grown produce is dug back into the ground! There seem to be protest marches galore all over the country – perhaps we all should march for this! [OK, once an idealist . . .]
I’ll share this post with every person I know! Thank you Lorraine!
This is a really important article Lorraine, well done for having the passion & the voice to write so well about it. I think it really illustrates how far removed so many of us are from our food – rejecting a Rockmelon because it has a “dot” on its skin is CRAZY! We need to get to back to knowing what “real food” looks like rather than thinking food is all about perfetion production – nature isn’t perfect…it’s about the blips and all. No wonder so much food is wasted…glad Food Bank are trying to save some of it.
All this waste makes me sick. I am sure over here in the US it’s no different. The prices of groceries rise at a steady pace and all because of this waste. I wish there were Foodbank supermarkets where anyone can shop and the people that want perfect produce can go shop at the regular supermarket and pay the enormous prices.
Great article. Thanks
Thanks for highlighting this food issue, TRUE!
Is a BIG, BIG, BIG pet peeve of mine re food wastage too!
Can FEEL your passion in reading your blog today too!
SURELY, other than letting the foods spoil, rot, go off, there must be something else that can be DONE and fast to help GENUINE people in need, TRUE!
I read your article with shock. I have recently decieded to stop buying fruit and vegge from the major supermarkets because I belived that it was over priced and of poor “quality”. Instead I have been trying to purchase as much as possible direct from famers and local suppliers, I have even found a local company that home delivers fruit and vegge boxes for considerably less than I was paying from the supermarkets. The flavour of the local (or at least market fresh) is 1000 times better. Yes sometimes there are marks or they are a funny shape. Some are even “undersized” and the choice is limited to seasonal (heaven forbid you can only get whats fresh) but the change has impacted my families diet tenfold with more flavour and quality meals and a reduction in the amount I need to budget (whilst getting more than I was ever purchasing from the supermarket). I think the major chains need to realise that what people want is value for money and tasty FRESH products not things that have been imported from overseas and have little taste.
I’m so GLAD you covered this story Lorraine.We, also through our church charity used to distribute surplus bread from Baker’s Delight to struggling families, 4 other churches(who in turn did the same), the Rural Fire brigads, Community centres who fed children etc.Then other “so-called’ charity groups spoiled it for the rest of us by colecting the bread & …wait for it…SELLING IT!!! B.D put a stop to everyone inc. us, & now Food Bank’s taken over! I think they do a great job not to mention a ‘fair ‘ one to all charity entities. Our country is prosperous, yes but to see such wastage of food, is sad. I wonder if supermarket corporates will think about the ‘specs’ if we ever have a FAMINE HERE?????
Great article Lorraine. Hardens my resolve not to buy veg from Coles and Woollies. I think consumers have become so distanced from what real food (rather than carefully spec’d and graded food) actually looks like. Farm visits for everyone, please!
As a farmer’s daughter from the Murray Mallee: we grew onions, spuds and pumpkins and everything NQN says is ‘spot’ on. At the age of eight I had to learn which onions, were too small, too big or seconds. The Stupid-markets (thanks Sandy) would not pay farmers (the pathetic prices) for produce that was not sold. That’s right – they ordered what they wanted, forced us to pay transport, then refused to pay for produce not sold. What other industry gets away with it ? They also took months to pay – or some middle men never paid. They all used genuine threats to stop farmers from selling elsewhere…
Instead of selling seconds for pennies, my dad would place a crate of free produce next to my school for people to take home.
The Stupid-markets are in fact forcing these farmers to contribute to Foodbank. Across Australia the farmers themselves need Foodbank.
So farmers are walking off the land (or crawling) and Aussies will be eating plasticised produce from overseas while we’re the greatest food bowl on earth. This is without doubt one of the most important articles of our time: starvation in the Horn of Africa versus only eaten if perfection in Australia. We Aussies don’t even think that way !!
Today, my retired parents grow the most delicious and beautiful fruit and veg with tastes that outdo even the organic stores !
* My students will be seeing this one so they know all the rip-off news is from NQN’s fantastic hard work. Bless you.
Really great post Lorraine.
I’d love to hear what the supermarkets actually have to say about this. I’m on the ‘inside’ since I work for one of the majors (they’re our client actually) and am involved in food packaging. I’d like to ask someone here to see what they say.
I mean, lots of people are willing to complain about how crap the supermarkets are, but does anyone actually approach them about it?
It would be a worthy question to pose. They are at OUR mercy are they not? Since we are the consumer.
Wasting food… not food for everyone, people living off supermarkets’ leftovers, supermarkets’ leftovers! We don’t really understand food do we? And the more I learn the less I want to eat!
Thank you for a most informative and eye-opening post! It’s horrible how much food is wasted when so many people are going hungry.
Well, I have just phoned my local stupid-market and given them the link, suggesting they not only read every part of your story but above all every comment passed by your readers.
so so wasteful. Why cant the big suprmarkets buy the “blemished” stock for a lower price and sell it on for a lower price so consumers have a choice to buy the “premium” non-blemished food at a premium or the “blemished” food at a reduced price. This might open the big supermarkets eyes to what consumers really want- good wholesome food, with a few blemishes due to less chemicals used- at a lower price.
Oh and shame on the NSW government for not supporting this scheme more- seriously this service is doing the governments job for them!!!
I am with Sandra – we have no grading of produce in this country. My husband is from the UK and was surprised when he got to Australia that there was only one standard for fruit and veg in the supermarkets. If there was a proper graded system then all types of produce could be accommodated at different price points. I also saw the “people’s supermarket” documentary and thought that it was a clever idea.
It’s horrifying that supermarkets are doing this – They should be taking on all the produce with only the smallest amount rejected. I would certainly eat the things shown here, a little education surrounding the food goes a long way. Now I wonder where I’ll find long seeded watermelons.
Very insightful article. I always wondered where the food goes as I am from Russia and I know what ‘real’ fruit & veg look & taste like, imperfections and all – the fresh produce here is so tasteless compared to what we used to have in my home country (or you can still get at growers markers in Oz) because supermarkets are so concerned with perfection everything is sprayed and chemicalised until it has almost no flavour… as long as it looks perfect they dont care!
I actually teared up a little reading about all this wasted food & very hardworking farmers having to destroy their produce.
–I Despise Waste…
of any kind. Damn, I’ve been known to take full milk cartons out of the garbage cans at school, take one chicken wing home in a doggie bag.
I’m afraid our country is just as wasteful as your country.
How sad….that we see small flaws as uneatable, undesirable.
Such a waste. Such a sin.
<3 thanks for this very educational post, dear. Xx
I shall Tweet it.
Thank you for doing this research and writing this post! Perhaps I shouldn’t be, but I’m really shocked by it (and particularly about the watermelons – how utterly wasteful).
Will definitely re-post this.
Catherine
This is such a broad and serious topic Lorraine. And not just in Australia. It is very sad to see people on the Farmer’s market that turn down misshaped carrot just because they think it’s not good for their consumption. After 11 years in US I am still shocked to see the amount of food waste, while so many people around the world are starving. I was raised in a family that despised any waste: as kids we were given portions that we could eat, any leftover was saved and incorporated in other meals. Food scraps were fed to the chickens or composted. Mother always use to tell us: “someone worked hard to plant the seed, to water it, to harvest it for us to enjoy it in a meal. Make sure you don’t waste it.” She still tells the same words to her grandkids.
I think one of the biggest problems (beyond what we are used to) is education about how to tell what good produce is. I think most of us just don’t have a clue so our instinct is to go for the fruit or veg that LOOKS the best. I certainly wish I had more knowledge in how to pick good produce.
Seriously, are consumers really so very shallow and vapid that they won’t buy some of this produce or is this just what the big two supermarkets want us to think. It certainly makes the stranglehold they have over their producers a little tighter when they have such strict specifications.
Great post Lorraine.
What an amazing thought provoking story Lorraine! Thank you for bringing it to us. I had no idea there was so much waste! Shame on the big supermarkets for rejecting ‘less than ideal’ fruit and vegetables for silly things like a blemish – that’s natural!
No wonder more people are moving towards farmers markets and organic ‘naturally’ grown products and services. Time that the bigger corporations started to pay attention. This is a huge problem. Poor farmers!
Great Post!
Great article. Wish there was a ‘people’s supermarket’ as we would shop there. We try and find things to make with the half price fruit and vegetables that are marked down in the major supers. Sometimes it is just one out of the half dozen items that is past it’s prime, eg bananas, nectarines etc.
Did you know your article was profiled on Zite?
I think it is great that you have written about this. More people need to know about the waste and what a great job Food Bank does. I never buy fresh food from supermarkets. I prefer to deal with small traders.
I would rather a peach be imperfect in shape but sweet & juicy on the inside rather than one be perfect and firm but rotten from the middle to the core. Supermarkets are charging excessive amounts of money for fruit due to “short supply” and then we see something like this. I’m sure if the honeydew & rockmelons here were supplied to supermarkets more people would buy them at a cheaper cost rather than seeing 3 honeydew melons & 1 rockmelon at a large Woolies for $7 each! I remember when I was younger fruit & veg were delicious. You could slice open a cucumber or watermelon & smell it half way down the street. Now they are flavourless but in perfect shape?? Makes no sense at all, & it’s definitely not what consumers want.
What a brilliant post. Thank you do much Lorraine, this is an eye opener. Hope more people will realize and understand about food waste.
I work for woolworths and omg I have never seen so much food waste in my life because of what so called not suitable for shelf but also from customers.
Lots of customers took frozen or chilled products and decided not to buy it and left them on shelf defrosted and warm and sometimes took whatever products and left them in the freezer.
Listen here people don’t think coz supermarket can handle the loss, it’s actually a food waste!!
It makes me sad that most of people forget what natural produce looks like, they prefer shiny waxed apples from the supermarket shelf.
I wrote a comment and then lost it, but basically I don’t want uniform food, it freaks me out a little as it is not natural. I look for food that is a little different, broccoli with large heads, smaller potatoes etc.
I hate the supermarkets telling us what we want when most people I know want the opposite.
I’d love to buy more directly from the farmers. Thanks for sharing.
Great thought provoking article, Lorraine. Thanks for bringing this issue into the spotlight.
I’m speechless.
I grew up in rural South Australia which is primarily wheat and sheep country and thought I knew a bit about farming. This article just shows how the control of Coles and Woolies has gone too far…
Onions must have skin on.
Valencia’s cant be green
Watermelon (and grapes) can’t have seeds
Veggies can’t be too big or small or even slightly marked or misshapen.
It sounds like these ‘specs’ go against almost everything that nature intended.
Lorraine thank you for showing me why I must try much harder to do all my food shopping at Farmers Markets or small independent suppliers. Even if the big two changed and started stocking graded fruit and veg (ie, ‘perfect’ and cheaper ‘blemished or mishapen’ options) I’m afraid my opinion of them is now so low I still wouldn’t shop there.
Will be sharing this as widely as possible.
What an awakening article Lorraine…
It is os sad to see how much food go wasted, there are so many people around the world who sleep hungry..
It is a shame to throw food like this, food which can make someone very happy!!!
Great post Lorraine, but what can we do to change the situation?
Well written and well researched. I cannot stand to waste food and try to hold myself to strict standards in my own kitchen. I’d be more than happy to cook with any of those “off spec” veggies you showed us. And I’d do anything to get a good old-fashioned long watermelon on a hot day. Great post.
What a great article! The degree of waste is outrageous. Surely taste is what counts.
This happens here in the UK too, and our supermarkets sometimes do a cheap range where packaging is minimal and the produce is irregularly sized, slightly marked or whatever, as opposed to perfectly symmetrical or whatever. Guess which I buy…..
I feel for the farmers who are struggling to keep going and obliged to accept very low prices from the supermarkets and bin lots of perfectly good fruit and veg.
Grow your own, I say!
what an eye opener! I like my fruit and veg to look normal, not uniform! I am pleased to see there are good ways of dealing with what could be a true waste. I am sending this link to my mom as she is involved world wide with women who work on feeding schemes for the poor / homeless
That guy who never saw anyone eat the watermelon skin clearly didn’t read your watermelon rind jam post, did he? Lol.
But this is such a great story, I was disgusted by the amount of waste! I wouldn’t mind a few blemishes on my fresh fruit and veg, we grow some of our own so I know what real produce looks like! And the watermelons with seeds? We buy grapes with seeds, what’s the difference?
Is it really the consumer though? I think the larger super market chains have forced it on the conusmer, but I also think it is a issue with consumers being too lazy to move from store to store. I am more than happy to shop at my local fruit market and more than happy to pay for fruit and veg that is not perfect especially at better prices. They also taste better. Better for our farmers too to be paid what they really should be. Why should we be paying a faceless group of execs millions just so they can put things in one huge space.
This was the crux for me: “The issue is a complex one – consumers are used to seeing perfect uniformly shaped produce for years displayed prettily on supermarket shelves so anything beyond the norm or perceived norm isn’t wanted.”
Places like Coles, Woolworths et al are doing EVERYTHING to perpetrate this myth that fruit has to look perfect to taste good. I was raised on fruit/veg from Flemington Market where less than perfect fruit rejected by the big chains is sold and is just as delicious!
I don’t know what the answer is, and don’t know if big chain supermarkets will change, but good on you and kudos to Food Bank and Waste Not Want Not for the work they do. Brilliant article, Lorraine! Well done
Fascinating! Great post. So good to learn more about this. I’m going to reassess when shopping, for sure. Will definitely share with friends, great work, Lorraine!
Heidi xo
This makes me furious. It’s like when politicians blame the standard of debate on “responding to public opinion”, when it’s the issues they choose to inflame that shapes public opinion through the media. If people weren’t led to expect “perfect” fruit and vegetables, and to taste that looks don’t matter, maybe things would get better. Aaaaah I’m just so mad right now!
You know what a situation like this is crying out for?
A redirection of government funding.
Why do we spend what is around $3,000,000,000 a year on foreign aid (10% of which is spent on things like emergency response, ie, providing food, water, medicine and critical supplies to people in need) and have people starving across the world, when we have all this food going to waste?
If the government simply re-directed 1% of the foreign aid budget ($30,000,000 in case you were wondering how much that would be) to purchasing these “unwanted” crops Australia would see a lot less wastage, people would be fed, farmers would get paid, and it wouldn’t be all so insanely stupid.
What an amazing story, thanks for sharing Lorraine! I used to be a food waster by buying too many groceries so now I pick up whatever I need on the day so there’s no waste if my dinner plans change. Any help counts right!?
I am truly horrified at the waste involved in the production of our food. Retailers should relax their specifications for fruit and veg, so that more of our producers can remain viable. In addition, the government should be providing a higher level of transport costs that Food Bank incurs, to facilitate the retrieval and delivery of the produce.
What a fantastic post. Really informative. I know we have the same ‘quality’ issues with farmed goods here too. I don’t know if we have a Food Bank here but your piece has spurred me on to find out. We all want to buy from Farmers Markets and farm shops where the produce is often far from uniform but then we feel as if we’ve bought the real thing! Lets hope that this view spreads to the supermarkets too. GG
THANK YOU for sharing and making this known. I’ve been a volunteer with charities supplied by food bank and also on the receiving end of help – it truly saves lives, but we can do so much more.
The waste still shocks me. People can be far too picky. I am totally happy with produce that doesn’t look ‘perfect’ or is near it’s use by date.
Maybe with the growing popularity of organic produce, customers will become more open to irregular shaped and sized produce since most organic produce doesn’t adhere to ‘specs’.
Thank you so much for sharing this problem that everyone needs to be aware of. Many of my family members also ‘dumpster dive’ and retrieve all manner of foods deemed inedible by the big supermarkets and food stores. These can be products one day past their best before date (but still fine to eat, and perfect to give away to charity I think!) or one time they got a whole carton of olive oil just because one of the bottles had spilled over a few of the other ones. It makes me so sad, all of this.
Thanks Lorraine for this important and disturbing post. I encourage everyone to share it with friends. Thank God for organisations like Food bank and Oz Harvest. I agree that there is definitely too much waste. I grew up on a farm where everything was home grown and nothing was wasted. Produce doesn’t need to look “perfect” to taste great, and in fact my dad’s homegrown vegies taste so much better than those from the supermarket….but they would nearly all be “off spec”. Imagine if the same rules applied to people…what a dull world it would be. Vive la difference!
xxx
Thanks Lorraine, this is gutsy and in-your-face and perhaps just enough to make us become more aware of the goings-on behind the glossy exteriors and fancy marketing of supermarkets.
All that food waste is just so WRONG and as consumers we can make it right by choosing to buy locally and support producers and encourage sustainability like organisations such as the Slow Food Movement.
I’ve forgotten the ‘real’ taste of strawberries , watermelon, rockmelons,etc you just don’t get that flavour any more unless you grow your own.Just start by growing some cherry tomatoes or strawberries in a pot and reap the rewards!
I knew there was a lot of waste… but WHOA!
Yet the retailers say there is a shortage of food… propaganda much?
I’ve volunteered at a food bank in Georgia that’s run very much like this except that everything was free. It’s amazing how much would go to waste if volunteers didn’t work really hard to get it to people who need it. We are all in their debt.
The blemishes in your photo wouldn’t bother me at all. It’s all about the texture, freshness and taste, isn’t it? If you’re going to peel the potato who cares if there’s a bit of lace on it. I certainly would still buy it.
Great post Lorraine
It’s really sad the food that is rejected…I definitely think the food regulations are too tight and no offence but I see pretty ugly looking fruit and veggies at my local supermarket…so I don’t understand why that watermelon would be rejected 
Thank you for writing this post and sharing your experiences at the Food Bank with is…definitely makes me think…and to support local farmers!
That’s ridiculous. Lord knows how much food is wasted here.
Thank goodness for Food Bank. I personally would love to slap the major supermarket chains in the face with their ‘off spec’. Wish they would spend as much money educating the average Australian of what is okay to eat, not what we are suppose to eat because they tell us it looks good. So over Coles and Woolworths in so many ways.
Absolutely ASTOUNDING Lorraine. I read the entire post with my mouth agape! I suspect it is very similar in Canada.
I was very glad to read KPMG’s involvement volunteering; I worked for KPMG Canada in the National Marketing Department for 13 years! We never had any programs like that, but I’m hoping they do now. I cannot imagine how much food goes into the dumpsters in countries who do not have food banks or similar programs. Truly criminal when there are so many starving in this world. Thank you for such an enlightening post.
Oh dear, don’t get me started! I can rant and rave about the food situation for hours…
Not only do we waste too much food while people go hungry, we make it difficult for our inner city families (here in the US) to even be able to access fresh fruits and vegetables. It is easier to find a mass produced apple fritter some places than it is to find an apple!
Lovely post, great issue to examine…kudos!
xxook
RMW
What a great post, it makes me feel sad and angry. I have recently found a small local country green grocers where the food looks real and tastes amazing, no more vegies and fruit from woolworths for me, and really isnt this the answer, just dont buy from the corporate giants!
Lorraine, thank you so much for your detailed story. It breaks my heart to see good food going to waste, great to see you give so much time to explaining the issue. I giggled once when the melon grower said ‘he doesn’t know anyone who eats the skin’ Hmmm, did you come clean?
Hi everyone! Thanks so much for your support of this story and for liking, retweeting, pinning and sharing it with others. Let’s hope that something good happens out of it
Much love, Lorraine xxx
Out of small acorns great oaks grow . . .
I find it sickening that so much food is wasted. Big supermarkets offer up what they perceive to be the most visually appealing goods and basically people lose sight of what fruit and veggies actually look like. I don’t care about imperfections, I want produce to be full of flavour and above all else FRESH.
Thank goodness for fabulous organisations such as The Food Bank and Second Bite down here in Melbourne. Thanks for raising awareness on this issue Lorraine.
Hi Lorraine, thank you for posting such a detailed account, this has been such an interesting and insightful read. We should be very thankful that Food Bank exists, the amount of food that is wasted in the western world is very sad. We try to do our small part by only purchasing what we need so we don’t have to throw any food out. Personally I would be happier if stores would stop worrying about what fruit/veg looks like and instead concentrate on bringing back food that tastes like it use to (and I’d be more than happy to buy the long watermelons).
I too love long watermelons with the seed. Bring them back! I don’t care about surface imperfections. I read somewhere else that bananas get rejected because they don’t have enough bend, or too much. Wastage makes me sad, especially as so many people in the world go hungry.
Yes it’s a crying shame. Yes the major grocers are too strict, but I probably would reject that fruit with a blemish. I’m not able to taste the produce before I buy and i don’t have any idea where it was grown or if the supplier, so I can only choose on looks.
The solution? Better relationships between farmers and consumers will build trust in the produce. By as close to the grower as possible
Well done, Lorraine. You went to a lot of effort for this piece, and we’re all better off for it.
They’re a good bunch at Food Bank.
What a fabulous post!
Thanks for this post. The waste is terrible! I think more education is needed. For example, I am perfectly fine with randomly shaped fruits but sometimes I’ll pick up an apple that has a suspicious-looking blemish on it and I wonder whether it is a natural anomaly or if it is an indication of a worm. I’d happily buy it if I could be reassured that there was nothing wrong inside!
Shared on Facebook – great story, thank you for writing about this important issue!
Dear Lorraine,
How I hope that such a situation would be in my country, where there is excessive food and perfection all round. However, in India, where I live, the lacy pattern potatoes are the best tasting ones too, and we source them from local producers. I so wish all this food going to waste would somehow make way into my country, then I do not have to see the hungry millions who roam about the streets in search of food, pick up whatever they can get from the gutters, and eat all these vegetables and fruits.
The supermarkets go too far and I am disgusted at how controlling they are – It would be great to boycott them and give them some of their own back. That excess food that can’t be taken is sad, especially when we know there are starving families around the world. I am so pleased that Foodbank, Waste Not Want Not and Oz Harvest do such a heart warming job, they’re wonderful. I always shop at co-ops and farmer’s markets. Great article L. XO XO XO.
Thanks Lorraine , for saying out loud what we probably all knew ,but either want to accept , or didn’t know any details . Great job ,well done.We have been changing our attitudes in our house for a while now , but your article now cements our attitude towards THOSE big 2.
Another great organization like Food Bank is FareShare (http://www.fareshare.net.au/). They’re based in Melbourne and cook meals using surplus food, then they distribute it to those who don’t have access to nutritious meals.
If you can’t be bothered reading all the info, I made a short video about the organisation here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iouE_zMTysk&feature=youtube_gdata_player
They really do great things and deserve a mention!
The stranges thing is I want to shop at this warehouse because it seems the foods there are fresher than those found at the stupid markets!
The turnaround time from farm to warehouse looks like 24hrs for the rockmellons, pumkins and onions!! I’m sure the ones at the stupid markets are at least a month old if not longer in cold storage. I mean really, I get home and the whole rock mellon I bought for $4 each smells off on the inside, its over ripe and way too soft to be fresh. They need to open it up to the public to buy but at a higher price than then what they charge for charities. I would pay the same stupid market price for fresher fruits thats in season, meaning they will make a bigger margin from the general customers which they can then use to support more charities. I’m sick of throwing out so called “perfect” looking fruit because its been in cold storage so long that is not edible but looks okay.
I have just read Penny’s most captivating article. It is both uplifting and distressing at the same time. We know that many people in the world go to sleep each night either hungry or not having eaten a meal of nutrious food. 2 million Australians rely on food relief annually. Thanks to Food Bank and volunteers quantaties of the waste produce is now feeding people in need. Fantastic work!
I have a particular problem with long stemmed broccoli as they are sold on weight and no-one really uses the stalks. If I do ever buy from supermarkets (prefer the markets) I break the stalks off in store, probably illegal but it really irks me.
Great post about a very complex but interesting situation. We’re not all perfectly formed so why do we insist our fruit and veg must be!
So glad you got out to see the good work that FoodBank is doing!!! I wish I could have made it back, but we were languishing in Sydney waiting for family to return.
I can tell you my experience when I first volunteered to help pick produce for FoodBank. I was standing in the middle of a HUGE paddock with cabbages as far as the eye could see. We picked as much as we could because it was to all be plowed under for not meeting market specification. I had brought students and school staff with me. They stood in awe that all that food would go to waste. In a country where 1 in 3 parents will miss a meal to feed their children we were plowing under food because it just wasn’t pretty enough. It was a life experience that I got to see flash across the faces of several teens and adults that day and is one I will never forget. I have previous experience working in teh US with a variety of foodbanks but nothing on the scale of this operation. Thank you for the article!!!
Thank you for your comprehensive investigative research. So sad to see the amount of food go to waste but inspiring how many people give of their own time and money to try to salvage it.
This is an incredibly interesting post, thank you for sharing with us and for giving us insight. I already remember how much I enjoyed your other OzHarvest post. I found the off spec stories shocking, especially regarding the broccoli, melon and even the onions (although if I were buying onions at the supermarket I admit I would probably discard the ones without the peel on them).
Fantastic post (took me a while to find time to read it but it was worth it). The waste here just seems so senseless. As I read the post I had dreams of the food bank and waste not want not people running the supermarkets. Wouldn’t that be amazing!
I confess that I don’t miss the seeds in watermelons right now because I have a young child to feed but I am sad that Sylvia wont learn about those black seeds like flies as she grows older. I also get frustrated that you can never buy big potatoes for baked potatoes and so I don’t bake potatoes very often as a result.
The whole idea of vegetables being perfect is very concerning. The longer the supermarkets control the look of vegetables (sort of like the supermodels of the produce catwalk) the more we lose sight of what vegetables really look like. I wonder if part of the problem is that we don’t learn about how to pick good vegetables from our parents as people once would have. that is isn’t about them being shapely and uniform but that there are other markers of taste.
Great post. Obviously the specs are ridiculous. This post made me think of this:
http://uliwestphal.de/mutatocollection/index.html
This is by no means a loaded question, but this article has been quite thought provoking and am trying to think my way through the issue!
So say the supermarkets decide to take the ‘off spec’ food, how would this equate to less waste?
I’m not going so far as to say farmers should produce less food, but perhaps an alternative option would be to provide greater funding and resources to organisations like Food Bank and Oz Harvest so more people are better fed. I’m just struggling to see how lowering the spec standards equals less wastage – any enlightenment would be appreciated!
Hi Liz-the off spec food is thrown out so if they accepted it, the fruit and vegetables would go into the stores. So obviously having it go to the stores instead of throwing it out would mean less waste. Many consumers would be happy to buy a rockmelon that has a spot on the skin because they don’t eat the skin.
Also providing more funding to Food bank and Oz Harvest isn’t really addressing the root of the problem and it would be better to address the source of the problem.
This is so shocking. Thanks for the post. I shudder to think what must be happening in a country like India, behind the scenes.
Thanks for the response, NQN. I guess what prompted my question is supermarkets don’t seem to have a shortage of spec food as it is, I think you even mentioned in your blog that the supply is greater than the demand. If supermarkets took all the food, wouldn’t there still be waste as not all the food could be sold?
A wonderful piece, I’ve never seen this kind of expose about food waste before. It’s mind boggling!
Wow! Great article!! Really made me think about my fussiness at the fruit & vege shop – & I didn’t think I was that particular. I can’t believe the scale of the waste!! I just wish there was a way to get these naturally-formed products from the farmers to our kitchen, without these mad specs. Obviously we have some options with the organic products & farmers markets – but i would love to see every fruit shop stock these. The big supermarkets too, but I won’t buy from them as its just too sterile & uniform, as well as being questionable in its freshness & flavour-compromised.
I miss the ‘seeded’ watermelon too!!
I was always under the impression that the under spec food was just juiced or processed – not thrown out!
Can I put a link on our website “Waste Not Want Not” to your blog please?
Hi Ali! Of course, no problems linking at all
Great article NQN – but very disturbing! Personally I find shopping for f&v at Coles or Safeway is incredibly booooorrrrring – so little variety, always same, same, same types of f&v. And also boring becaue of the uniformity – everything’s too perfect and un-natural, there’s none of the wonderful “flaws” that make our natural world so interesting. “Perfect” nature is just SO wrong!
Hello! I came here via Curbly and got interested in clicking the link to this article.
Coming from a developing country (used to be called “third world”), I am appalled at the food waste that Australia produces. On the upside it won’t go to the landfill or perhaps be feedstock to the incinerator as biomass. But then again you have countries like the Philippines where hunger is the norm for the most part of the population, where food distribution is unequal, and food production is still unpredictable. I am thankful though that farmers’ markets are alive and well in our rural areas, and that regular folk would prefer going to them rather than to large supermarkets, and that we know that blemishes or off-spec produce will not matter. Maybe we’re used to them as the more acceptable produce is exported to the US, Australia and other developed countries.
And for that, I agree it’s a complex matter, even for us from outside your country is party to this issue. Food surplus could drive the price point down and Big Business wouldn’t like it. It’s a good thing that you have an organization driven to reduce food waste that tastes just as good or even better. Good luck to WNWN and more power to you NQN!
It is really disturbing that the farmers have to discard so much of their produces. It is good that at least that food goes to people who needs it – it is sad to addmit that there are 2,000,000 people in need, it shouldn’t happen in this country.
Unfortunately there are countries that can’t afford to throw food. My husband and I visit Kenya every 18 months or so where we do charity. The majority of the 40,000,000 people every morning don’t know whether they are going to eat that day, let alone to discard a potato for the lace like skin or the melon with a dot. Keep up the good work Food Bank and its volunteers.
Lorraine, congratulations for this grat article.
Thank you so much for this very important article. It breaks my heart that there is so much waste. I want everyone to read it!
seasonal surplus could be the ‘current staple’ to use some more of these abundant crops trendsetter. Love your work putting this story into a modern media,,
This is something that my husband and i are very passionate about. The amount of food that is wasted is ridiculous. Have you heard of TED? You might be interested in this: http://www.ted.com/talks/tristram_stuart_the_global_food_waste_scandal.html
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