With ASDA and Tesco recently reporting falling sales, I thought about the afternoon in London in March 2007 when WRAP revealed its latest research. We were told that 1/3 of food purchased is thrown away - most of it good enough to eat.
This staggering figure, 8.3 million tonnes per year, is simply wasted.
At the time, I thought how this might pan out. There were two possible outcomes.
1) We all eat 1/3 more - consequences, we all get very fat and very ill
2) We all buy 1/3 less - consequences, massive reduction in revenues for retailers and everyone along the supply chain.
Since then WRAP has worked hard on educating the public into wasting less food. One study in Oxfordshire showed that people do respond to this with an extra 4% of people committing to wasting much less food than they previously were.
I would like to think that supermarket sales are falling because people are wasting less. The collective belt-tightening we are all going through must surely help in this respect.
But how can anyone run a business knowing that 1/3 of what they sell goes straight in the bin? That really is criminal. Common sense needs to prevail and I am afraid when it does, supermarket sales might fall further still.
I will try keep it short and sweet Johnathan.
ReplyDeleteFalling Sales:
The market share of 'the big four', Tesco, ASDA, JS and Morrisons, is taking a hit for a number of reasons, the main one being, not surprisingly, a mix of higher food prices (due to rising fuel costs) and less money in the household purse.
Furthermore, their market share are being hit by some of the smaller 'value retailers such as Aldi, Netto, Poundstretcher and Poundland.
Farmers markets, although not offering value (yet), trade on freshness, taste and food miles.
Waste:
As a result of the above, waste will not really decrease. The only thing that will change is WHO wastes it, us as consumers or them, the supermarkets, who cannot sell it off before it goes off.
The light at the end of the tunnel is simple, albeit far away (no pun intended). Wealth distribution and economic equality throughout the world will eventually lead to self sufficiency. Yes, of course we will still get bananas from Colombia but just eat more homegrown apples and pears. Which brings us back to farmers markets. Less packaging, less waste and less fuel.
So get out there this Sunday to your local market. Pay more and buy less and save the planet at the same time.
The headline figure of food wastage is misleading. It implies we buy stuff and throw it away, but I believe it includes food rejected as unfit at the farm, loss in transit, food going off etc. I heard a couple of supermarket chiefs on Bottom Line saying that we have much less wastage than in underdeveloped countries because we have better infrastructure, fridge wagons etc. Supermarkets are actually the most efficient deliverer of goods ever invented. They have to be. They do not like buying stuff and throwing it away. Their stock control and logistics are breathtaking. I have a printing firm and I print for no supermarkets so I look at it purely from a businerss point of view. I am sick of the romantic view that consumers want dirty odd shaped spuds. If they did ASDA would sell them. The consumer is the first to complain if a fresh item is on sale after the sell by date. Supermarkets give a brilliant service at a low price. That is what consumers want. It's like taxes. I will say I want to pay higher taxes for better services until I enter the ballot box. Consumers all say they want expensive organic local misshapen unwrapped goods untill they get their wallet out.
ReplyDeleteSupermarkets manipulate what consumers 'can like'. There are no wonky vegetables available in my local supermarket. When it has been trialled, wonky vege was priced the same as perfectly shaped vege (because the supermarkets would sell less of expensive perfect shaped vege if there was cheaper wonky vege offered - I dare to suggest). The supermarkets hard drive to offer cosmetically perfect fruit and vege has breed a false consumer expectation of an 'unreal' visual aesthetic and driven down the focus on taste and provenance and that is now the norm for a generation of consumers(you cannot 'see' the taste of it on the shelf so taste is a tricky feature for supermarkets to use to boost sales so they don't). On a slightly positive note, at least Sainsbury's have all of a sudden stopped wrapping cucumbers in plastic:-)
ReplyDeleteWe as consumers dictate.
ReplyDeleteFood Waste - Sadly, food waste is driven by the commercial necessity to over supply. It keeps prices consistent. Look what happens to oil prices for example when there an oil nation is at war.
Wonky waste - Value brands such as Smartprice (ASDA) Basics (JS) and Tesco 'value' are where the wonky and inconsistent food tends to be sold. In part, thats what makes them value lines. Consumers demand consistency and the 'mid tier' and 'premium tiers' deliver it. The value brands deliver inconsistency with consumer knowledge that it is doing so.
Over packaging - Consumers demand hygiene, freshness and undamaged goods. Again Supermarkets just deliver consumer needs.
There is no quick fix to packaging waste. The best we can expect is benign, improved materials and a ambitious recycling policy.
Any notion that supermarkets have any control over our shopping habits is simply old fashioned and ill founded.
As I say consumers dictate!