Shelagh Young explains why distributing food waste to the poor to tackle poverty will prove to be a pricey mistake in the long run
The idea of the community supermarket is causing quite a controversy. These special shops for especially poor people supposedly address food poverty and food waste by flogging surplus supermarket produce at knockdown prices on a not for profit basis.
Thinktank Demos has sparked a furious response from food bank experts the Trussell Trust with its British Aisles report, which suggests replacing foodbanks by diverting retail food surpluses from waste streams to these so-called community supermarket shelves.
In making this argument Demos acknowledges that people with no money cannot buy food anywhere. It also doesn't pull its punches when it describes the causal factors of food poverty; low wages and inadequate welfare benefits are mentioned. But long-term systemic change takes time and in British Aisles, Demos is in pursuit of a much-needed speedy means of ending the unsustainable growth of charitable food banks.
However, there are better ways than recycling retail waste to feed hungry poor people in a country which produces a great deal of the fresh and healthy food we need and want. Rather than offering incentives for supermarkets to send more of their waste to these sad sounding community supermarkets let’s cut out the middlefolk and get government investment directly into community groups, co-operatives and farming bodies to boost capacity to work directly with growers and other food producers to bring good-quality fresh food, fairly priced and paid for directly to those of us who need it most.
British Aisles is fatally flawed for me because it muddles the concept of cheap food with that of affordable food. Most low priced food is neither cheap nor affordable in the long-term if you factor in the hidden costs such as low wages to food producers and environmental damage from unsustainable agricultural practices.
Surprisingly, Demos is disappointingly dismissive of existing attempts at improving access to truly affordable food with food co-ops, box schemes and food buying clubs dismissed on the grounds that their products is “not delivering absolute best value” because they provide food which is “intrinsically more expensive”. The questions left hanging there is “more expensive than what and to whom”?
From obesity and diabetes to enduring poverty for the producers and habitat, species loss and climate change for the planet, today’s cheap food is tomorrow’s costly problem
At the risk of revealing myself to be one of those well-heeled, sharp elbowed middle class types which Demos seems to want to keep out of its proposed special supermarkets I believe that acknowledging and being able to pay for the real cost of food is vital for both people and planet. I do not accept, for example, that fair wages to veg pickers in Kenya are an unaffordable luxury because cleaners in Coventry aren’t paid enough to afford a balanced diet.
Cheap food of the sort that appears on our supermarket and discount store shelves is actually the most costly of all. Like designer label knock-offs cheap food provides a shoddy and short-lived illusion of prosperity. A belly full of cheap but instantly tasty calories almost inevitably brings problems. From obesity and diabetes for the consumer to enduring poverty for the producers and habitat, species loss and climate change for the planet, today’s cheap food is tomorrow’s costly problem. The fact is that nutritious and really healthy food supplies which are sustainable in all senses of the word cost a great deal more than many people in the UK can currently afford.
Supermarkets should be held to account for seriously damaging the domestic dairy industry by underpricing milk, luring us into buying expensive processed foods that are bad for both our waistlines and our wallets and forcing growers to pay less than a living wage by stripping margins to the bone.
Recycling retail food surpluses does nothing to challenge a food business model that is unsustainable to its very core. As the recent Tesco accounting scandal and dramatic store closure programme reveal, supermarkets are driven by the tyranny of maintaining shareholder value rather than ensuring all round community benefit. Driving waste down is of increasing importance to supermarkets hit by falling profit, and any “solution” to food poverty, no matter how temporary, that relies on their leftovers is a very risky tactic indeed.
Shelagh Young is a director of Nourish Scotland which is working to help create a fair, healthy, affordable and sustainable food system in Scotland.
