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Voices from the Fields

Food waste - From field to bin, what's going wrong?

United Kingdom
food system
fruit and vegetables
supply chain
Educating the public

Food waste in the UK isn't just about what ends up in household bins. It's a story that starts on farms, shaped by supermarket grading, urban lifestyles, and broken supply chains. These farmers lift the lid on the hidden cost of waste.

The statistics on how much food gets wasted in the UK each year are shocking. Millions of tonnes of edible food, worth billions of pounds, are thrown away annually. Households, supermarkets, the hospitality industry and many others all contribute. To give just one example, almost half the potatoes bought end up in the bin. The UK is also Europe’s most wasteful country.

Unfortunately, reducing food waste is an effort blocked or hindered at almost every turn, because of the way the food system is structured for farmers. 

Abby Allen, Director of Farming at Pipers Farm in Devon, says farmers face intense pressure from supermarkets due to grading systems that reject perfectly edible food which does not meet strict standards around appearance or colour. “So many crops are just left in fields because the grading is far too harsh,” Abby says. “Even when it comes to meat, standards can mean increased trimming or rejection of cuts, which increases waste.”

She also points out that official rules often work against a culture of waste reduction. “There are so many regulations, partly because of the increasing industrialisation of food, which is less safe than properly-produced food grown in nature-friendly systems, but also because of imported food made to different standards,” she says.

So many crops are left in fields because the grading is far too harsh, while standards for meat can mean increased trimming or rejection of cuts, which increases waste.

Abby Allen

“The move towards more processed foods in our diets instead of whole ingredients is actually shortening shelf life. For example, dried rice lasts significantly longer than packs of pre-cooked, microwaveable rice.”

Tom Craig, who farms in Northern Ireland, says the millions of tonnes of food that either aren’t harvested or don’t reach an abattoir is a problem not talked about enough. “I never realised until recently that on-farm waste isn’t included in a lot of the official figures,” he says. “It is not referenced in government food or net-zero strategies or in the mandatory food waste reporting.”

The range of meat cuts UK consumers tend to favour has also narrowed, leading to large amounts of waste even in systems like intensive indoor chicken rearing, which come with high costs in bought-in feed, energy to power buildings, and large volumes of water. “I recently visited a large chicken processor and they don’t even harvest the offal of the birds because it’s just not financially worth it,” Abby says.

Modern life, in some ways, also made food waste more likely. “The increased urban population has meant a reduction of storage in people’s homes,” Abby says. “Lots of flats or studios in cities have no freezer, only a small fridge and very limited cupboard space. This makes cooking and storing food significantly harder, pushing people towards eating more takeaway food and having a more throwaway lifestyle.”

For Ifan Davies, who runs an upland farm in mid-Wales, it’s vital that blame for the situation lies with the supply chain, not with the public trying to work out what to eat. “These are the unintended consequences of cheap food,” he says. “There’s a disconnect between the raw produce and the consumer, so it’s important to raise awareness of these issues among the general public. People need the right information to make informed choices about their diets.”

Fortunately, there are many ways to reduce food waste. Anna Biesty, who divides her time between London and her family farm in Norfolk, highlights initiatives like Oddbox, which delivers boxes of ‘wonky veg’ and other rejected produce to households, as a great way to shift people’s mindsets. “My kids love unpacking the box and identifying all the veg. It’s such a good educational tool as well as providing delicious food,” she says. “We should be celebrating ‘damaged’ apples or the post-Christmas glut of Brussels sprouts.”

Farmers are also keen to promote concepts such as nose-to-tail eating. “Products such as carcasses and offal, which have so much nutritional value, have been so devalued,” Abby says. “Without that consumer education it all ends up going into biodigesters.”

We should be celebrating 'damaged' apples or the post-Christmas glut of Brussels sprouts.

Anna Biesty

Tom suggests our multicultural society could help revive the importance of whole-animal eating habits. “We have people from Eastern Europe working at our local abattoir and they still cook and eat offal, so there’s now a market for it to be sold here,” he says. “They are eating in a similar way to how we ate in Northern Ireland 50 years ago, so perhaps we need to take a leaf out of their book. I also think we need to teach home economics and cooking more, because the ability of adults in the UK to cook has been dropping, fuelling the growth of things like ready meals.”

For Ifan, farmers can also contribute directly to reducing food waste. “If you’re raising livestock, many products which would otherwise be regarded as waste, such as wonky or discarded carrots and potatoes, biscuits and brewers’ grains, can be fed to the animals,” he says.

Jon Thornes, who farms in Lincolnshire, agrees. “We don’t want to give the impression that feeding biodiversity is waste,” he says. Jon offers a philosophical take on changing our mindset around food. “Nature runs on a perfect loop,” he says. “Imagine if, instead of throwing food away, we thought of a forest, where every fallen leaf feeds the next season’s growth.”

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