A Broken Food System?

Yesterday we collected 20 boxes (2 car loads!) of unsold and surplus food items from a local supermarket and a little under 24 hours later I am feeling pleased (and relieved!) that, barring a few loaves of bread, we have nearly distributed the lot using the very excellent Olio platform  https://olioex.com/. Olio enables you to advertise items or request items locally for free with the focus being on reducing waste and helping to tackle the climate emergency. If, in the process you can obtain some food items that you would use for free (actually via Olio you can advertise and request non food items too, and they have recently branched out to include a selling platform too called "Olio Makes" aimed at home cooks and crafters etc) and if you can channel some perfectly edible food to others in need then that's an added bonus. The prime focus of this exercise is food waste reduction. This is an important thing to note and I will discuss the moral and ethical maze further below.

The shocking truth here is that the 20 boxes that we have successfully shifted would otherwise have been binned by the well known national supermarket in question. That chain (one of the big 4) has approximately 18 stores across Cornwall, a mix of large hypermarket stores, standard supermarket stores and local convenience style outlets. We collected from one of the larger hypermarket style outlets that they have here.

That the national chains of supermarkets have some wastage will not come as a surprise to many people. Any GCSE student of maths or science will tell you that no system can achieve 100% efficiency. This fact applies to all systems in all spheres of life. But nonetheless I find that I am shocked and moved to write about the food I am witnessing being potentially wasted in my local area. When I scale that up to a global level, a UK level or even just a Cornwall level it stops being comprehensible to me. Perhaps what really brought it home was the feeling of rising panic I felt within me when the store assistant wheeled out a warehouse trolley stacked with 10 boxes and then told us that there was another one like that on its way. It's a huge store and I know that our 20 boxes probably represents but a tiny fraction of a percentage of the food that routinely flows through that operation, but even so when you are standing there looking at how big 20 boxes are and how comparatively tiny your family estate car is it brings it home to you more than expressing it in terms of weight, volume or value.

So what was in the boxes? Predominantly this time it was fruit & veg and bakery items but in the past we have had quite a variety of other things (cut flowers, chocolates, air fresheners, cosmetics etc). I should explain that "use by" and "best before" dates are of real importance for food items. It is illegal in the UK to distribute food items which have gone beyond their "use by" dates but "best before" dates are advisory. So when we get our Olio collection (we do this weekly) one of our first tasks is to sort through the items and identify those with a "use by" date. These are the priority ones, because the clock is ticking and we have to distribute them before their use by date expires.If they haven't been distributed by then, we must dispose of them in other ways - in the case of fruit and veg items this typically means composting but some items aren't suitable for composting and sadly have to be thrown in the general waste. So in our 20 boxes we found about 20 stir fry veg packs and maybe a dozen shredded lettuce packs which were all use by the same day. We did successfully distribute some of these items but unfortunately not all so our compost bin was duly fed this morning. Added to these were other fruit and veg items which had "best before" dates - a large quantity of lettuces (I would guess 150), 77 boxes of fresh strawberries, some packs of fresh herbs, packs of spinach, bags of apples and packs of soft fruit. In addition to the fruit and veg was a large amount of bakery items - I would guess 50 loaves of sliced bread (of varying types) plus a selection of bread rolls.  In all yesterday we created 46 listings containing 390 separate food items.

When you are in the process of sorting the items, photographing and listing them and then monitoring and responding to the requests that come in it feels quite intense and frenetic, but also lots of fun. Some of our more experienced Olio requesters know the score and what to expect, but there are also people new to the platform who we have to explain things to. We work as a team to get through it;  but inevitably at times confusion reigns. We have learned that you have to be methodical about it. As the items get advertised on Olio people start requesting them and often an item will become over subscribed leaving us with the dilemma of who to allocate to (be nice to your Olio food heros folks!). We now have a steadily growing circle of Olio "regulars" and that is a key thing to nurture. This week we were pleased that volunteers from two local animal sanctuaries have discovered Olio (with a teeny bit of prompting from us on social media) and this was very helpful to us especially in enabling us to shift the large amounts of lettuce that we collected and we now know that turtles love strawberries. On a personal and local level its a fun process, we are meeting and connecting with lots of like minded people in our area and helping people out.

But as I reflect on this weeks' Olio "mission accomplished" I can't help but feel that all our efforts are, in a small and local way, merely treating some of the symptoms of a massive systemic problem with how food production and distribution works in the modern age. Maybe its even worse than that and we are unwittingly propping up a broken system by masking the problem, allowing the Supermarket bosses to claim some kind of kudos. Why do the sophisticated stock management systems of a major supermarket business not adjust and respond to consumer demand levels to avoid over supply on this scale? Is there some reputational imperative built in to ensure that shelves appear full even if that means higher waste levels are generated and hence presumably higher than necessary food prices? Consider the effort, resources and energy that goes in to production, packaging and distribution of the food items on our supermarkets' shelves and the environmental impact of that production. Within our boxes this week were strawberries from Spain, packs of basil from Morocco, rosemary flown in from South Africa (I find this one particularly bizarre as rosemary grows really well all year round in my garden in Cornwall). On an economic efficiency basis alone it can only be described as a monumental failure that supply is outstripping demand so significantly. 

And that's before we start thinking of the morals and ethics involved. In 2020, lots of people do not have enough to eat. Marcus Rashford has highlighted the challenges relating to school age children who cannot access hot meals during the school holidays and with many predicting significant economic hardship yet to come this problem will get probably worse. That we have prevented 20 boxes of edible food being thrown away is positive in environmental terms, but there are clearly challenges here. In a perfect world we wouldn't need to do this and food production would be in accordance with the needs of the population. We know that the people we distribute to in our area aren't necessarily always those in the most need and reaching those people is a perpetual challenge. By filling our neighbours' cupboards, freezers and fridges with free food items we are unquestionably helping them out so that is good. However also we have to recognise that this inevitably must have an impact locally on consumer demand for food items which doesn't do anything to help our struggling local independent high street businesses, whose trade the major supermarkets have already ravaged in the last 40 years.

So a lot to think about, mostly well above my pay grade. Meanwhile, like many Olio "food heroes" around the UK we will keep on keeping on, collecting and distributing as best we are able to. On balance it feels like the best response to the problem that we can muster and the many benefits of preventing food waste and in the process helping and connecting with others outweigh the challenges to my mind. 

 

 

Early Lockdown days in Redruth

On Monday evening the PM made a historic announcement that all UK citizens are instructed to stay at home as a measure to tackle the Coronavirus/COVID19 pandemic. What is clear to us all now is that this situation is completely beyond control of government and we can only sit in our locked down houses and await the tsunami of critically ill patients that are surely going to overwhelm our cherished and heroic medics in the NHS.

Here we have a natural liberal/conservative PM who has spent his entire career espousing the benefits of liberal democracy issuing an edict worthy of the most authoritarian regimes in history.

This lockdown trend was started by the Chinese government in Wuhan, China in late Jan but that kind of response seemed very alien to our western liberal and free societies here. When Italy followed suit a few weeks later we should have seen it as a wake up call but still business as usual prevailed. No staffing up or kitting up of the NHS occurred in the UK at that stage, no arrangements for mass testing were put in place despite the apparent success of that strategy in South Korea
The Italian and Spanish trgedies have unfolded day by day before our very eyes and so it was, I think, inevitable that our Government would follow the lead set but the French to put the country into a formal lockdown situation.

For the first time in my life UK Police have powers to disperse gatherings and fine people for leaving their homes. Unbelievable! My Dad has received a letter from NHS to tell him not to leave his house for 12 weeks. My wife and 2 brothers have been furloughed from their employment. No one knows how long this is going to go on for.

We are allowed to leave our homes for daily exercise - initially many people interpreted this as driving to beaches and local beauty spots but that is now being clarified - daily exercise should begin and end at your home.

The economies of the world are closed. Only essential activities continue - public services, food retail. My work in public administration can continue through working from home. We use teleworking extensively anyway so for now we can carry on making our plans and strategies for tyhe future in the hope and faith that this will end at some stage and life may return to something like normality. In truth though it won't ever be the same as it was. Many of the businesses that have closed will never reopen. Many workers who have habitually commuted to work places each day will going forward work from home more often. How long will it be before we have confidence to be within 2 metres of other humans without catching a killer virus?

Initial lockdown days have been not too bad in truth. Most people I speak to have been gradually adjusting to this new normal. My family has bonded in a way that we generally only do on a family holiday; conversations have been had, truths have been spoken, board & card games played. The internet has been helpful from a work and play perspective and it helps that the weather has been glorious making it possible to eat lunches in the garden and enjoy the stunning Cornish scenery around our house whilst out for our daily exercise.
Let's hope that continues.

Experiencing a real life pandemic

The Coronavirus / Covid19 pandemic of 2020 has been happening for about 16 or so weeks now having started hitting the news around December 2019 when first cases started to be reported from China (Wuhan). I was (I think) vaguely aware of some news reports but didn't pay it a great deal of attention at that time; had other priorities like work, family Christmas etc. In fact most of the media attention at that time was on our growing sense of global ecological disaster. Big parts of California and Australia were on fire at the time with horrific out of control bushfires laying waste to vast areas, decimating livelihoods and wildlife - nature demonstrating to us all how truly powerful and vengeful she can be - shattering the narrative that humanity is in control.
Let's be honest, we hear about disasters and health scares from time to time in faraway places but in my, admittedly quite limited, experience of life - mainly living in sleepy Cornwall in the UK - it doesn't have a big impact on me personally. Sure I have sympathised with those affected and sometimes contributed to fund raising efforts to help out, but all the while there has been no threat to me or my family and friends directly.

I think I registered that this was going to be a biggie when I heard about the Chinese central government putting Wuhan into a "lockdown" state. The measures they were taking seemed extreme and the fact that this was being widely reported seemed out of character for a Government which isn't known for transparency. It struck me that in order to take the measures they had taken things must have got pretty bad and the situation must have become out of control at a local level.
Still though the international response seemed non existent. Other governments weren't imposing any controls or doing any visible preparations.

Well fast forward to now and the situation certainly feels very real. As of yesterday the UK Government - generally a promoter of individual freedoms and liberalism - has imposed a shut down of pubs, cafes, restaurants, leisure centres, gyms etc and implored us all to stay at home and avoid contact with others "Social Distancing". The UK economy is literally being shut down in front of our eyes. Only 7 days ago the talk from government was all about creating "herd immunity" amongst the populus - basically if enough of us got the virus then it would crrate a more resillient population. They changes tack on that when some modelling showed that this strategy would create hundreds of thousands of additional deaths and overwhelm the NHS.

We know it's a serious respiratory disease and have heard that the majority of people who get it only have "mild" symptoms. Older people and those with pre-existing health conditions are at significantly heightened risk. These are our Mums and Dads, Grannies and Grandads.

The Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, has announced an unprecedented set of measures to attempt to cushion the blow for the millions of individuals who will be out of work as a consequence. The government is proposing to pay 80% of peoples' wages while their employers are forced to close.

I have spent the last 5 days working from home - whilst I am accustomed to working from home from time to time it is the first time I've had such an prolonged spell. I've reached the end of the week feeling quite cooped up.

Most people I meet seem aware of and respectful of the "social distancing" etiquette. The streets are quite deserted. I walked into town earlier to buy some veg and an elderly couple apologetically crossed the road when they saw me coming "sorry I hate this don't you". A slightly different reaction later today when out for a cliff walk in Falmouth when an elderly lady "tutted" as we approached, gesticulated for us to keep away from her and muttered at us. My guess is that the torrent of news now bombarding us all had left this lady terrified of being in any kind of proximity to others (we didn't get very close to her at all).

  My music lesson tomorrow morning is still on but most events are now being cancelled. Panic buying is taking place in supermarkets and supermarket staff must be at their wits end.

The NHS is anticipating being "at capacity" within 2-3 weeks from now, with a peak of cases predicted sometime after that.

We watch and wait and hope that this doesn't become as bad here as it has been in China and Italy but the signs aren't encouraging.