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| Eric Ronney & Associates live and work
in the world of Consumer Supply Chains. We are naturally interested in
the issues that affect our world. Our Supply Chain Blog is written to stimulate
discussion and debate on these issues. |
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The latest blog is here. This and previous
blogs can be found at www.ericronney.wordpress.com.
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6/2/08,
50% of UK food is wasted |
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| According to Lord Haskins, former chairman of Northern
Foods, 50% of food that is produced in the UK ends up in landfill. |
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| 20% is thrown away by manufacturers before it gets
anywhere near the shelves. The other 30%, he says, is thrown away by
consumers. |
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| The problem for manufacturers is that the retailers
often give very short notice of orders which forces the manufacturers
to make food in advance, guessing what they will order. Also, the
retailers often have the right to cancel orders at the last minute,
leaving the supplier with food that it can’t sell and has to dump. |
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| This is very silly. If the retailers and their
suppliers talked to each other a bit more and planned the flow of food
onto the shelves, they could eliminate a lot of this ’rubbish’. |
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| As for the 30% thrown out by consumers, this figure is
confirmed by WRAP (a pressure group that encourages efficient use of
materials and recycling). They say that 2/3 is thrown away because the
food is past its use by date and the other 1/3 because too much has
been cooked. |
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| I can’t help feeling that this behaviour is linked to
increasing portion sizes and over-safe use-by dates when in fact the
food would be perfectly OK to eat. |
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| In view of the fact that 815 million people on the
planet don’t have enough to eat (UN) and that wasted food
production means wasted energy and extra methane gas from landfill
(methane is a much more potent greenhouse gas than CO2), perhaps this
problem needs some attention! |
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