Do you remember when we found out that the prime minister, after one of the less damaging leaks from her administration, told her cabinet meeting that she scrapes the mould off jam rather than throw it away. She told colleagues that she scrapes the mould off and the rest is “perfectly edible”. She added that people should use “common sense” to work out if the whole jar should be thrown out. Giggles all round.
Like Norma Major’s advice to freeze left-over cheese, and Margaret Thatcher’s habit of stockpiling tinned food to beat inflation, it was taken to be symbolic of a certain penny-pinching meanness, the ethos of a WI branch gone mad, apparently bizarre in people who are pretty wealthy by any standard.
Wrong though. The statistics on food waste – which is to say perfectly edible, good food, simply dumped – are depressing. We do not, as a society, value food, even when there are about two million people in the UK living in food poverty, many thousands of children turn up at school without a breakfast inside them, and many, many people of all ages have poor diets rich only in fat, salt and sugar – hence the obesity epidemic and all the health complications that accompany it.
We’ll tell you what’s true. You can form your own view.
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There is, then, an ironic double whammy: we lack nutrition, but we waste vast amounts of it too. At the Step Up To The Plate symposium organised by government, industry and charities, we learned that Britain throws away 10 million tons of good food and drink away every year. Households account for about 7 million tons of that – some £15bn worth.
On average, we throw away one third – one third! – of the food we buy. Think of that.
1/20 Lady & the Tramp
Who would have guessed one of the most romantic scenes in cinema would involve two dogs eating scraps in an alleyway? And, yet, the iconic spaghetti kiss from Disney’s 1955 animated film has been oft imitated but never surpassed, as the two pups indulge in an Italian delicacy, all soundtracked to Sonny Burke and Peggy Lee’s “Bella Notte”. And, as Tramp proves, there’s no greater act of chivalry than offering your date the last meatball…
Moviestore/Rex
2/20 Babette’s Feast
Gabriel Axel’s Oscar-winning 1987 Danish film is a visual treat for any self-confessed gourmand. The story sees two pious Protestant sisters offer refuge to a French woman fleeing the political tumult in Paris after the collapse of the Second Empire in 1871. They agree to hire her as a housekeeper,
discovering later that she’s the former chef of one of Paris’s best restaurants. When she wins the lottery, she uses the funds to whip a meal to remember for her kindly hosts.
3/20 Hook
All the very best chefs know that a dash of pure imagination is key to creating a true culinary wonder. It’s a lesson well-taught in Steven Spielberg’s 1991 classic, Hook, as a grown-up Peter Pan (Robin Williams) looks on in disbelief as the Lost Boys tuck into what appears to be nothing at all. It’s only when he truly believes that he can see the brightly colour feast laid out before him. And what childish feast would be complete without an old fashioned food fight?
Sony
4/20 Breakfast at Tiffany’s
Sure, the 1961 film’s title may be a little misleading. Its protagonist, Holly Golightly (Audrey Hepburn), in reality only has breakfast outside of Tiffany’s, popping out of a cab in the early morning light to peer into the jewelry shop window, all while enjoying a pastry and some coffee in a paper. The moment has still remained the peak of glamour, decades later, so who cares if it’s all a little white lie?
Keystone Features/Getty Images
5/20 The Godfather
It’s a classic scene that proves to be surprisingly instructional. Francis Ford Coppola’s 1972 film has a full-blown recipe tucked within its elegant drama, as Vito Corleone’s close associate, Peter Clemenza (Richard Castellano), offers his version of the perfect pasta sauce. As he explains: “You start out with a little bit of oil. Then you fry some garlic. Then you throw in some tomatoes, tomato paste, you fry it; you make sure it doesn’t stick. You get it to a boil; you shove in all your sausage and your meatballs. And a little bit of wine, and a little bit of sugar—that’s my trick.”
Rex Features
6/20 Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
Although the 1971 musical is, as a whole, a sugary delight, it’s hardest to resist the temptation of Willy Wonka’s Fizzy Lifting Drinks, a soda described as so bubbly that it lifts anyone who drinks it right off the ground. It’s no wonder that it was the one stop on the tour that ended up tempting the pure-hearted Charlie Bucket (Peter Ostrum) and his grandfather (Jack Albertson). Now, the real question is: does it come in different flavours?
Getty
7/20 Eat Pray Love
For anyone who considers pizza to be the true love of their life, Ryan Murphy’s 2010 romcom is a perfect cinematic match. It’s hard not to relate to the moment Liz Gilbert (Julia Roberts) bites into a piece of authentic Italian pizza, during the Naples stop on her global adventure of self-discovery, and declares: “I’m in love. I’m in a relationship with my pizza.”
Rex Features
8/20 Beauty & the Beast
Although we might not fully be convinced that the grey stuff is delicious, the “dinner and show” approach to Lumiere (Jerry Orbach)’s hospitality is something we could certainly get used to. In Disney’s 1991 animation, Belle (Paige O’Hara) is presented with a whole cavalcade of sumptuous dishes: including beef ragout, cheese souffle, pie and pudding “en flambe”. And there’s a sage piece of advice to go with it all, too: “If you’re stressed, it’s fine dining we suggest!” Indeed.
Disney
9/20 Steel Magnolias
While there’s been a growing fad of ambitious, unusually themed cakes – you need only look at the success of the TLC reality series Cake Boss – there are few cinematic cakes that quite stick in the memory like Jackson (Dylan McDermott)’s armadillo-shaped groom cake from 1989 comedy-drama Steel Magnolias, a spin on the tradition from the American South of having another cake separate to the main wedding cake. And did we mention that it’s red velvet on the inside?
REX FEATURES
10/20 Marie Antoinette
When it came to director Sofia Coppola conjuring the ultimate image of decadence for her 2006 biopic on the French queen, there was no more perfect treat than Ladurée’s famous macarons. Delicate and pastel-toned, the meringue-based confection has long been the speciality of the French bakery, first established in 1862. A new flavour was even created in honour of the film, with the Marie Antoinette offering a combination of rose and anise flavours.
Columbia Pictures
11/20 The Hundred Foot Journey
Food is often regarded as one of the best ways to understand a culture, and The Hundred-Foot Journey is wonderful for showing the efforts the talented, self-taught novice Hassan (Manish Dayal) goes to in order to comprehend that. During a picnic he reveals he has mastered the five “mother sauces” of French cuisine, and the delicate tasting process that follows demonstrates just how important food is to France.
12/20 Goodfellas
“In prison, dinner was always a big thing.” So much so that the Wise Guys ate better than most people on the outside. “Beyond the Sea” plays in the background as the gangsters prepare their meal: Garlic sliced so thin with a razor blade that it would “liquefy in the pan with just a little oil”, meatballs in a tomato sauce that’s “a little too oniony”, steak cooked medium rare, iced lobsters, prosciutto, salami, cheese, red wine and good Scotch. Maybe crime does pay after all.
13/20 Chocolat
There are few pleasures in life more fulfilling than that of cooking for others. In Chocolat – based on the book by Joanne Harris – a slow-motion scene where dinner party guests tuck into the feast created by expert chocolatier Vianne Rocher (Juliette Binoche) is full of warmth and laughter.
AP
14/20 Pulp Fiction
In a world where people seem more than happy to fork out £15 for some mushy avocado on toast, $5 for a milkshake doesn’t seem too unreasonable. Vincent Vega (John Travolta) takes his boss’ wife Mia (Uma Thurman) out to Jack Rabbit Slim’s for a burger, where she decides she wants the “$5 dollar shake”. “You don’t put bourbon in it or nothing?” a bewildered Vincent asks the waiter. When it arrives, Mia takes a long sip: “Yummy.” “I gotta know what a $5 shake tastes like,” Vincent says. He takes a sip. Then another. “Goddamn, that’s a pretty f***ing good milkshake.”
Miramax/YouTube
15/20 Julie & Julia
Nora Ephron’s feature film based on the intertwining stories of chef Julia Child and Julie Powell, the blogger who rose to fame after documenting her pledge to cook all 524 recipes in Child’s cookbook, is all about the joy one can find in food. It is some of the earlier scenes that capture this best, like when Julia (Meryl Streep) and her husband Paul (Stanley Tucci) arrive in Paris and stop at a French restaurant, where Julia is served a sizzling platter of sole. It looked so mouth-watering in the final edit that Ephron “wanted to call up Martin Scorcese and say, ‘you’ve never shot a fish like that before’”.
Rex
16/20 Ratatouille
Fearsome critic Anton Ego takes a bite of ratatouille and is transported back to his childhood, where it was a favourite comfort food, in the best scene from Pixar’s wonderful animated film. The detail is superb, from the process of Remy the rat preparing the dish to the moment Ego’s pen falls to the ground as he remembers the power of a favourite meal in evoking memories we thought were lost.
YouTube screengrab / Jeugos para ninos / Disney Pixar
17/20 Spinal Tap
“I don’t want this, I want large bread… but I can rise above it, I’m a professional.” The miniature bread catastrophe is a beautiful parody on every self-absorbed rock star to have kicked off over something as ludicrous as the food they’re served backstage. Guitarist Nigel Tufnell sits next to a tray of sandwiches looking baffled as his manager walks over. “Look,” he says, picking up a sandwich. “This, this miniature bread. It’s like… I’ve been working with this now for about half an hour. I can’t figure it out. Let’s say I want a bite, right, you’ve got this…”
“Why do you keep folding it?” Ian asks. Nigel looks down at the broken bits of bread, then tries again: “This. I don’t want this.” He throws the sandwich to the ground, disgusted. “I want large bread!”
Embassy Pictures
18/20 The Help
After all the trauma she has been through – at the hands of her abusive husband and a racist ex-employer – Minny (Octavia Spencer) arrives at her employer Celia Foote to find a beautiful dinner cooked for her as a thank you for everything she has done for Celia and her husband. You see the care that has gone into it as Celia lays everything out on the table, from a “mile high meringue” to the fried chicken Minny taught her how to make. “That table of food gave Minny the strength she needed,” the narration explains. “She took her babies out from under Leroy and never went back.”
AP Photo/Disney DreamWorks II, Dale Robinette
19/20 Five Easy Pieces
Robert Dupea (Jack Nicholson) just wants some toast to go with his omelette, but the waitress is stubbornly sticking to the diner’s “no substitutions” rule. “I’ll make it as easy for you as I can,” goes the famous order. “I’d like an omelette, plain, and a chicken salad sandwich on wheat toast. No mayonnaise, no butter, no lettuce… and hold the chicken.”
Columbia Pictures
20/20 Big Night
It was a scene that helped propel a revolution in American dining. Il Timpano, a dish inspired by the notoriously tricky-to-make Italian meal, is the star of a moment in Big Night where chef brothers Primo (Tony Shalhoub) and Secondo (Stanley Tucci) prepares it as the centrepiece for a feast attended by their rival, Pascal. “Goddamit, I should kill you,” he screams, throwing his fork down after tasting Il Timpano. “This is so f***ing good, I should kill you.”
1/20 Lady & the Tramp
Who would have guessed one of the most romantic scenes in cinema would involve two dogs eating scraps in an alleyway? And, yet, the iconic spaghetti kiss from Disney’s 1955 animated film has been oft imitated but never surpassed, as the two pups indulge in an Italian delicacy, all soundtracked to Sonny Burke and Peggy Lee’s “Bella Notte”. And, as Tramp proves, there’s no greater act of chivalry than offering your date the last meatball…
Moviestore/Rex
2/20 Babette’s Feast
Gabriel Axel’s Oscar-winning 1987 Danish film is a visual treat for any self-confessed gourmand. The story sees two pious Protestant sisters offer refuge to a French woman fleeing the political tumult in Paris after the collapse of the Second Empire in 1871. They agree to hire her as a housekeeper,
discovering later that she’s the former chef of one of Paris’s best restaurants. When she wins the lottery, she uses the funds to whip a meal to remember for her kindly hosts.
3/20 Hook
All the very best chefs know that a dash of pure imagination is key to creating a true culinary wonder. It’s a lesson well-taught in Steven Spielberg’s 1991 classic, Hook, as a grown-up Peter Pan (Robin Williams) looks on in disbelief as the Lost Boys tuck into what appears to be nothing at all. It’s only when he truly believes that he can see the brightly colour feast laid out before him. And what childish feast would be complete without an old fashioned food fight?
Sony
4/20 Breakfast at Tiffany’s
Sure, the 1961 film’s title may be a little misleading. Its protagonist, Holly Golightly (Audrey Hepburn), in reality only has breakfast outside of Tiffany’s, popping out of a cab in the early morning light to peer into the jewelry shop window, all while enjoying a pastry and some coffee in a paper. The moment has still remained the peak of glamour, decades later, so who cares if it’s all a little white lie?
Keystone Features/Getty Images
5/20 The Godfather
It’s a classic scene that proves to be surprisingly instructional. Francis Ford Coppola’s 1972 film has a full-blown recipe tucked within its elegant drama, as Vito Corleone’s close associate, Peter Clemenza (Richard Castellano), offers his version of the perfect pasta sauce. As he explains: “You start out with a little bit of oil. Then you fry some garlic. Then you throw in some tomatoes, tomato paste, you fry it; you make sure it doesn’t stick. You get it to a boil; you shove in all your sausage and your meatballs. And a little bit of wine, and a little bit of sugar—that’s my trick.”
Rex Features
6/20 Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
Although the 1971 musical is, as a whole, a sugary delight, it’s hardest to resist the temptation of Willy Wonka’s Fizzy Lifting Drinks, a soda described as so bubbly that it lifts anyone who drinks it right off the ground. It’s no wonder that it was the one stop on the tour that ended up tempting the pure-hearted Charlie Bucket (Peter Ostrum) and his grandfather (Jack Albertson). Now, the real question is: does it come in different flavours?
Getty
7/20 Eat Pray Love
For anyone who considers pizza to be the true love of their life, Ryan Murphy’s 2010 romcom is a perfect cinematic match. It’s hard not to relate to the moment Liz Gilbert (Julia Roberts) bites into a piece of authentic Italian pizza, during the Naples stop on her global adventure of self-discovery, and declares: “I’m in love. I’m in a relationship with my pizza.”
Rex Features
8/20 Beauty & the Beast
Although we might not fully be convinced that the grey stuff is delicious, the “dinner and show” approach to Lumiere (Jerry Orbach)’s hospitality is something we could certainly get used to. In Disney’s 1991 animation, Belle (Paige O’Hara) is presented with a whole cavalcade of sumptuous dishes: including beef ragout, cheese souffle, pie and pudding “en flambe”. And there’s a sage piece of advice to go with it all, too: “If you’re stressed, it’s fine dining we suggest!” Indeed.
Disney
9/20 Steel Magnolias
While there’s been a growing fad of ambitious, unusually themed cakes – you need only look at the success of the TLC reality series Cake Boss – there are few cinematic cakes that quite stick in the memory like Jackson (Dylan McDermott)’s armadillo-shaped groom cake from 1989 comedy-drama Steel Magnolias, a spin on the tradition from the American South of having another cake separate to the main wedding cake. And did we mention that it’s red velvet on the inside?
REX FEATURES
10/20 Marie Antoinette
When it came to director Sofia Coppola conjuring the ultimate image of decadence for her 2006 biopic on the French queen, there was no more perfect treat than Ladurée’s famous macarons. Delicate and pastel-toned, the meringue-based confection has long been the speciality of the French bakery, first established in 1862. A new flavour was even created in honour of the film, with the Marie Antoinette offering a combination of rose and anise flavours.
Columbia Pictures
11/20 The Hundred Foot Journey
Food is often regarded as one of the best ways to understand a culture, and The Hundred-Foot Journey is wonderful for showing the efforts the talented, self-taught novice Hassan (Manish Dayal) goes to in order to comprehend that. During a picnic he reveals he has mastered the five “mother sauces” of French cuisine, and the delicate tasting process that follows demonstrates just how important food is to France.
12/20 Goodfellas
“In prison, dinner was always a big thing.” So much so that the Wise Guys ate better than most people on the outside. “Beyond the Sea” plays in the background as the gangsters prepare their meal: Garlic sliced so thin with a razor blade that it would “liquefy in the pan with just a little oil”, meatballs in a tomato sauce that’s “a little too oniony”, steak cooked medium rare, iced lobsters, prosciutto, salami, cheese, red wine and good Scotch. Maybe crime does pay after all.
13/20 Chocolat
There are few pleasures in life more fulfilling than that of cooking for others. In Chocolat – based on the book by Joanne Harris – a slow-motion scene where dinner party guests tuck into the feast created by expert chocolatier Vianne Rocher (Juliette Binoche) is full of warmth and laughter.
AP
14/20 Pulp Fiction
In a world where people seem more than happy to fork out £15 for some mushy avocado on toast, $5 for a milkshake doesn’t seem too unreasonable. Vincent Vega (John Travolta) takes his boss’ wife Mia (Uma Thurman) out to Jack Rabbit Slim’s for a burger, where she decides she wants the “$5 dollar shake”. “You don’t put bourbon in it or nothing?” a bewildered Vincent asks the waiter. When it arrives, Mia takes a long sip: “Yummy.” “I gotta know what a $5 shake tastes like,” Vincent says. He takes a sip. Then another. “Goddamn, that’s a pretty f***ing good milkshake.”
Miramax/YouTube
15/20 Julie & Julia
Nora Ephron’s feature film based on the intertwining stories of chef Julia Child and Julie Powell, the blogger who rose to fame after documenting her pledge to cook all 524 recipes in Child’s cookbook, is all about the joy one can find in food. It is some of the earlier scenes that capture this best, like when Julia (Meryl Streep) and her husband Paul (Stanley Tucci) arrive in Paris and stop at a French restaurant, where Julia is served a sizzling platter of sole. It looked so mouth-watering in the final edit that Ephron “wanted to call up Martin Scorcese and say, ‘you’ve never shot a fish like that before’”.
Rex
16/20 Ratatouille
Fearsome critic Anton Ego takes a bite of ratatouille and is transported back to his childhood, where it was a favourite comfort food, in the best scene from Pixar’s wonderful animated film. The detail is superb, from the process of Remy the rat preparing the dish to the moment Ego’s pen falls to the ground as he remembers the power of a favourite meal in evoking memories we thought were lost.
YouTube screengrab / Jeugos para ninos / Disney Pixar
17/20 Spinal Tap
“I don’t want this, I want large bread… but I can rise above it, I’m a professional.” The miniature bread catastrophe is a beautiful parody on every self-absorbed rock star to have kicked off over something as ludicrous as the food they’re served backstage. Guitarist Nigel Tufnell sits next to a tray of sandwiches looking baffled as his manager walks over. “Look,” he says, picking up a sandwich. “This, this miniature bread. It’s like… I’ve been working with this now for about half an hour. I can’t figure it out. Let’s say I want a bite, right, you’ve got this…”
“Why do you keep folding it?” Ian asks. Nigel looks down at the broken bits of bread, then tries again: “This. I don’t want this.” He throws the sandwich to the ground, disgusted. “I want large bread!”
Embassy Pictures
18/20 The Help
After all the trauma she has been through – at the hands of her abusive husband and a racist ex-employer – Minny (Octavia Spencer) arrives at her employer Celia Foote to find a beautiful dinner cooked for her as a thank you for everything she has done for Celia and her husband. You see the care that has gone into it as Celia lays everything out on the table, from a “mile high meringue” to the fried chicken Minny taught her how to make. “That table of food gave Minny the strength she needed,” the narration explains. “She took her babies out from under Leroy and never went back.”
AP Photo/Disney DreamWorks II, Dale Robinette
19/20 Five Easy Pieces
Robert Dupea (Jack Nicholson) just wants some toast to go with his omelette, but the waitress is stubbornly sticking to the diner’s “no substitutions” rule. “I’ll make it as easy for you as I can,” goes the famous order. “I’d like an omelette, plain, and a chicken salad sandwich on wheat toast. No mayonnaise, no butter, no lettuce… and hold the chicken.”
Columbia Pictures
20/20 Big Night
It was a scene that helped propel a revolution in American dining. Il Timpano, a dish inspired by the notoriously tricky-to-make Italian meal, is the star of a moment in Big Night where chef brothers Primo (Tony Shalhoub) and Secondo (Stanley Tucci) prepares it as the centrepiece for a feast attended by their rival, Pascal. “Goddamit, I should kill you,” he screams, throwing his fork down after tasting Il Timpano. “This is so f***ing good, I should kill you.”
If we followed the official advice to buy what we eat and eat what we buy, each household with children would save about £800 a year.
We would also succeed in reducing CO2 and greenhouse gas emissions. Think about it: the diesel, aviation fuel or petrol to take food from farm or factory to shop, warehouse and home; the plastics, glass and metals used in packaging it; the energy used in manufacturing it; the fertilisers used in growing it; pesticides and herbicides; the methane released when it winds up in landfill. If we managed to eliminate food waste, we would reduce annual national CO2 emissions by the equivalent amount of taking every HGV lorry off the road.
One man around the cabinet table listening to Ms May’s household tips, maybe, took the homely advice to heart. Michael Gove, Secretary of State for the Environment, Food (stress on that bit) and Rural Affairs, and a speaker at the symposium, displayed a degree of passion about the profligate way we produce, store, transport, and consumer and, above all, chuck away perfectly good food.
He is doing something – albeit modest – about it. There’s a government grant of about £15million for recycling schemes that will take the produce not used or sold by supermarkets, other retailers, wholesalers, restaurants and the hospitality trade, and turn it into nutritious, fresh meals that can feed to those in need.
Charities such as the Felix Project (supported by The Independent‘s Christmas campaign in 2017), FareShare and City Harvest have been in the vanguard of the movement to reduce waste and improve nutrition. They can offer disadvantaged families food parcels of fresh fruit and veg, meat, cheese, fish, bread, sandwiches and other perishables, in contrast to the tinned and dried foodstuffs in the food banks. They can also use raw ingredients to make wholesome meals for the homeless, for example.
Relatively small sums of public money have thus been able to leverage much greater effort from the private and voluntary sectors – and they are indeed paltry when compared to the challenge of reducing those billions of pounds worth of waste, not to mention relieving the human misery of people in this land of food surplus forced to go hungry.
Mr Gove has also appointed a “food tsar”, or Food Surplus and Waste Champion, Ben Elliot, to try and persuade businesses to throw less food away, to put the food they do have to throw away to better use, and to try to convince them to change policies and practices that tend to lead to consumers buying too much in the first place.
Mr Elliot has been attacked for being the boss of a company, Quintessentially, that is a concierge service operating in the luxury sector to people so wealthy they never have to consider the cost of anything, let alone the weekly shop. He also has the original sin of an Eton education.
Yet why hold his vast wealth and privilege against him if she uses his contacts, managerial skills and gifts of persuasion and organisation to get effective food waste projects underway. In post only since January, so far he has helped achieve a near doubling of unused food redistribution. He has also announced increased funding for food waste initiatives; set ambitious targets for retailers in time for November, when a corporate league table of food waste reduction will be published; and stepped up his dialogue with the companies. His company also has its own charity arm, the Quintessentially Foundation.
Philanthropy can never usurp the proper role of the state in providing social security, because it has not the means to do so; but where the state and business have left gaps, then the voluntary sector has to try and fill them.
Now Mr Eliot is asking – insisting – that everyone sign up to the “Step Up to the Plate” pledge, to be a “food value champion at work and at home, buying only what I need and eating what I buy, wherever I am”. As an unpaid and hard-working actor in this sphere Mr Elliot is demonstrably sincere in what he wants to do, which is to end the “environmental, moral and financial scandal” of wasting food.
Mr Gove has been among the first to sign up to the pledge – which includes a goal to halve food waste by 2030 – and is joined by corporate players in the world of food including Nestlé, Tesco, Sainsbury’s, and Waitrose. Others supporting the initiatives include the East End food company, KFC as well as the Wrap charity and Guardians of Grub, a group who want to reduce waste in the catering trade. The Victoria and Albert Museum is to host a “Bigger Than the Plate” exhibition from Saturday. It is, with luck, the beginning of a cultural shift in attitudes.
There is still much more to do though, and in November’s “Food Conversation Week” the nation (if it can spare a few moments from Brexit) will be asked some difficult questions.
Some appear intractable. At a time when, for the prosperous classes in the UK, food, either consumed at home or eaten out, has never been cheaper – where is the incentive to buy wisely and reduce waste?
Culinary innovations such as bubble and squeak, fish and chips or oxtail soup date back to times of acute shortage or war-time rationing, economic recession and depression, when households could only afford the basics and budgets were strained.
Today, food is a relatively small part of most household spending, a point made forcibly by Henry Dimbleby, boss of the successful Leon chain and another government adviser, during the discussions at today’s food waste symposium.
And whereas chefs, food manufacturers and farmers all have a financial incentive to reduce waste – because it hits their profits – the supermarkets have an in-built incentive to want to sell us more and more food we might not eat. This results in overly cautious “use by” dates to ubiquitous “buy one get one free” offers. For those of us who recall a time when our nose and eyes could determine whether food is edible, “use by” and “sell by” dates seem entirely superfluous, while “BOGOF” offers are a crude but effective marketing ploy that we might be better off (and perhaps slimmer) without. “Buy one, garbage one free” might be a better translation of the acronym.
One last point. In France the levels of food waste are far lower than in Britain. Partly this may be down to France’s traditionally respectful, if not reverential, attitude towards food.
Partly, too, it is down to a battery of taxes and penalties levied on supermarkets, in particular, that fail to make sure their surplus food goes to those in greatest need.
It is a statist option that a Conservative government is reluctant to take, but if Mr Gove and Mr Elliot are serious about their project, and if voluntarism doesn’t deliver, they may yet be forced to take more draconian steps, to end what they recognise is an “environmental, moral and financial scandal” .