Episode 1 Hugh's War on Waste

We are spending more money than ever before

to get what we want, when we want it.

But we're paying a high price for our world of infinite choice.

How long do you think it takes the whole of Britain to throw

away seven tonnes of clothes?

Especially when it comes to food.

Millions of people in Britain are struggling to pay their food bills.

Yet a third of all the food we produce never gets eaten.

That has to be wrong.

Oh, my God. You do get a better class of waste at Waitrose.

Oh, beautiful pears!

With your help, I want to do something about it.

Who or what is telling you that these can't go

to your supermarket clients?

The supermarkets themselves.

I want to persuade our biggest corporations

to stop wasting millions of tones of food.

You are throwing away one million birds a year.

What do you think of that figure?

And I want to see what we can do to waste less food ourselves.

Look at that. That's naughty.

I think there's at least one good tea left in here.

I don't think you should throw it away.

Because what we chuck away at home

is costing the average British family £700 a year.

That's out of date, that can go.

12th of August.

It's only the 12th of August today and you're throwing them out.

It's time to start a rubbish revolution!

We're currently throwing away, at home,

over 4 million tonnes of perfectly good food.

That's 88 million of these wheelie bins full of food

that's perfectly good to eat, and we're chucking it away.

Our supermarkets certainly know how to sell us stuff.

We pile up our trolleys with multipacks and special offers,

but most of us buy food that we're never going to eat.

And on average, we end up binning a day's worth every week.

So today, I'm going to save a few people the trouble

of taking home the food they will end up throwing away.

Excuse me.

Can I just talk to you for a couple of minutes about your shopping?

-Yeah, go on.

-Yeah? OK.

So 16% of the food we take home we throw away.

Do you recognise yourself in that statistic?

A little bit?

Do you throw some of your food away?

Er...Yeah.

-Like when it goes past its sell-by date.

-Yeah.

To save you the trouble of taking it home...

Go on.

..I thought we could throw some of your food away right here.

Right.

So, for example, have you by any chance got any carrots here today?

-Yes, yes.

-So a quarter of the carrots we buy

are thrown away at home. So can we start by binning one of your carrots?

Go on, why not?

Thank you very much.

Take one of my carrots!

Two and a half kilos of potatoes.

Quarter of all of them.

But you were going to throw them away anyway.

That seems fair, doesn't it? One more for luck.

Have you got a salad?

You can't open that!

-Really sorry.

-Oh!

Look, a third of all our boxed and bagged salads,

a third of them...

-..get chucked away.

-Why did you pick on me?!

Terrific start.

We throw away a surprising amount of milk.

Oh, no! Oh, don't.

-Just a little slosh.

-Oh, that's terrible.

What have you got here?

That's me mother's! That's me mother's.

Do not take it. She loves bread.

We're throwing away 25%.

So, that's about that much.

Maybe a bit more.

Ah, grapes. You've got grapes.

It's about 20%. Just shake a few off.

Oh!

You only bought half a cucumber.

Yeah, and it was reduced.

I'm going to reduce it a bit more.

-Do you know we throw away 10% of all our yogurt?

-OK.

More than one of these goes in the bin.

I'll let you off with one. Just don't punch me!

HE LAUGHS

Taking people's food off them when they've just bought it

is really difficult, but nationally this percentage of our shopping,

of our food, is being binned.

So whether we do it here, or whether they do it at home

at the end of the week when it doesn't look so good,

the waste is the same.

-Do you know why I'm throwing your food away?

-No.

Cos that's what people do. They throw their food away.

Cereals. 10%.

10%?

One in six.

10% of cheese.

5% of all our biscuits.

Strawberries.

13%!

You should be able to do something with that.

Yeah, I'm thinking of a recipe even now.

Even taking relatively small amounts of food off people

and binning them feels horrible.

It just brings it home to me what a shocking amount of food

and therefore money we are all wasting.

I'll be coming back to Manchester looking for ways to reduce

the amount we chuck away at home.

But we're only part of the problem.

Millions of tonnes of perfectly good food is being destroyed

before it even leaves the farm.

I got in touch with over 50 UK farmers who supply all

the major supermarkets.

But, for some reason, hardly any of them wanted to talk on camera.

One of the few exceptions was Norfolk veg farmers, the Hammonds.

They've been growing parsnips on Tattersett Farm

for three generations.

Olly and his mum, Debs, are harvesting and packing parsnips

seven days a week, but the business is up against it.

The price of a small bag of parsnips has dropped by 30p in five years.

But a big part of the problem is the parsnips

that aren't making it into these bags.

Now, we're looking for two sizes here, Hugh.

We're looking for a pre-packed size.

And then we're also looking for the larger loose size

-but that's wonky, so that won't go in.

-You see, I love that.

-I love that curve on that.

-Yeah, but that can't go in.

-That one's too big.

-Too big? What's wrong with that one?

-Too short

-Too short?!

Far too short.

They're all too small.

Almost all supermarket fruit and veg is graded

using strict cosmetic standards that define, to the millimetre,

exactly what's acceptable.

Some of the produce that fails this beauty contest can be sold

as animal feed or used in other products like soup or salad.

But the rest is left to rot, or else ploughed back into the ground.

-Your professional pickers here have rejected that.

-The shape.

-The shape?

-You're top-heavy.

-Such a lovely parsnip.

-Wonky.

So do you feel that today you're looking at a crop

that's grading quite well?

Yes, this is a good crop. So we're very lucky.

Yeah ,we're quite pleased with how this field's turned out.

I guess one of the things that's a bit sad about this process is

we're not even looking for the bad ones and chucking them away.

We're searching for the beautiful ones

and everything else is getting rejected.

That just seems to me the wrong way round.

Am I allowed to put that one on?

Borderline, Hugh.

Borderline. You see it?

When Deb says "borderline" I know she means "no" but I hope

I don't get that this whole lot sent back but, for me, that's going in.

I don't care what anyone says. It's too good not to.

-But it's too short, Hugh.

-Is it?

-Yep.

Ah.

According to Olly, most farmers are just too scared

to speak out and criticise the supermarkets that pay them.

And though there's always going to be veg that gets rejected

because it's not up to scratch, losing so many crops

to cosmetic standards is the final straw for the Hammonds.

-Are you effectively producing at cost at the moment?

-Yes, yes.

-Do you expect to make a profit on the farm this year?

-No, no.

-None.

-None.

Really? How long's it been like that?

Probably longer than is good for us as a family business.

If this continues, what's the future?

Closure, basically.

-Arguably, you should be pulling the plug right now.

-Yep, yep.

If grandfather was around today he would have said,

"Guys, you've done your best, you're up against the odds now.

"Let's call it a day."

What's the point coming up here seven days a week

to do this for nothing?

Just to keep my girls in, you know, a place of work?

You're upset, aren't you?

SHE SNIFFLES

Sorry!

That's all right.

That's all right.

I mean...

-..they're such great products, aren't they?

-Mm.

And they're grown with so much passion.

Where's Olly gone?

Oh, he's upset too, now.

It's a big fight.

A big, big fight.

Olly's grandfather started the farm in the 1970s.

Back then, he never had to waste crops because of cosmetic standards.

And now the Hammond family are close to calling it a day.

It's not a pretty sight, for my eyes, anyway.

No.

It's far too much.

Just under a week's worth here.

That's less than a week?

Yeah. Less than a week, yeah.

Are you sure you're not over-reacting

to their instructions just a little?

No. If we sent an order in one day with these parsnips

it would get rejected and returned to us the next day.

-Really?

-Yeah.

Any idea what the total tonnage, that's your full week's waste,

how many tonnes is that?

You're looking at nearly 20 tonnes of waste parsnips.

We haven't yet mentioned the name of the supermarket you mainly supply.

Are you happy to tell me who they are?

-Yeah. For sure.

-So who are these parsnips being supplied to?

They were destined for Morrisons.

Is that the only supermarket you supply?

-Yes.

-OK.

Of course, Morrisons are not the only supermarket

whose cosmetic standards cause massive waste on our farms.

It's happening all over Britain, wasting not just food,

but all the energy, resources and manpower that goes into producing it.

28 shopping trolleys full.

And from here it doesn't even look like we've made a dent in your pile.

-No.

-Such a waste.

Imagine how many people we could feed.

Yeah, I know.

-We might have done a tenth? Probably not even.

-No.

-Say we've just done a tenth.

-Yeah.

Then we'd have 280 if we did the whole lot.

280 trolleys - that would go right through that gate down to the road.

-Yeah.

-And every single one is edible.

-Yeah.

Absolutely shocking.

I'm going to chase Morrisons for an interview

so they can put their side of the story.

And I think we should be challenging all the supermarkets

to step up and address this crazy waste of food.

But if we want them to listen to us,

then I think we have to be ready to do our bit at home, too.

I've selected Gardner Road in Prestwich, Greater Manchester,

to be part of a nine-week experiment.

I want to see if I can help the residents here

to stop throwing away so much food.

Before I tell them what I'm up to, I'm going to have a sneaky peek

at exactly what they're throwing away.

Ooh! Heaviest so far.

Full to overflowing.

-Do you want a hand with that?

-Yeah, no, I've got it!

-You all right?

It's very, very full though.

A lot of foodie stuff in here.

Look at that, that's naughty.

Two days out of date.

I could have spun a meal out of that.

Eggy bread for breakfast. Bread pudding.

I didn't come to Prestwich to find Britain's most disgusting bins.

I came because they're no better or worse than the rest of us,

which means most of the families here

are binning about 15 quid's worth of food a week.

Couple of onion bhajis here, Alan. Look good enough to eat. You hungry?

Help yourself!

Hello, you're loitering. Is that something else for the bin?

It is, yeah.

What is it?

Bit of food.

That's got another two weeks to go.

-Two weeks to go. It's not...

-I know, but it's been opened.

How long has it been opened?

About three days?

Do you know what that smells like to me?

Good bacon. Good bacon!

OK, what about the eggs?

They're out of date.

Yesterday?! You know there is a trick

-for how you can tell whether eggs are fresh?

-No.

You put them in a bowl of water

and if they sink to the bottom, they're completely fresh.

If they float to the top, chuck 'em.

You don't trust me, do you?

I didn't know that!

I think there's at least one good tea left in here.

-I don't think you should throw it away.

-OK.

-Is that all right?

-Yeah.

-Thank you, Karen.

-OK.

-You really want to get rid of it, don't you? Not today!

-Bye!

Bye, Karen! Meanwhile, I'll get rid of this.

Thank you.

I'm convinced that, armed with a few thrifty recipes,

Karen and the rest of Gardner Road can waste less food

and save money in to the bargain.

But tasty ingredients aren't the only things

popping up in the grey bins.

Surely that's too good to throw away?

You'll be able to go out tonight.

It won't go with your boots!

Have we missed you, sir?

-How's the recycling going?

-Fine.

-Yeah? Not bad.

So there's nothing in this bin that shouldn't be in there?

RUBBISH CLATTERS

Clang! What was that?

I don't know!

You might think we've all got pretty good at recycling these days

but more than half of what we're chucking in our general waste

isn't meant to be there.

Oh, my God!

And I want to see what else we've collected this morning.

-Shall we dive in?

-Yeah.

Well, maybe not dive in, but have a closer look?

Yeah, certainly.

There's plenty more food in this mountain of trash,

along with huge amounts of tins, bottles, jars and plastic.

-That is a quality saucepan.

-Unbelievable, isn't it?

Measuring jugs.

This is all good charity shop stuff.

We're a wasteful society.

But most shocking perhaps are the piles and piles

of decent-looking clothes.

That looks really, nearly new.

And this is typical of every street in Britain.

When you bundle all our wasted clothes together

we're chucking away just under 1,000 tonnes every day.

The government's spent millions trying to get us to sort our rubbish.

But clearly the message isn't hitting home.

And we are wasting a spectacular amount of good, usable stuff.

Because once it's in the grey bins,

everything we chuck away is usually incinerated, or buried in landfill.

I don't think we're even close to getting halfway through

the pile yet.

And I can't help wondering whether the community that produced

all this waste in the first place, if they had a second look at it

like this, they might just think again about all this great stuff

they're chucking, and all this recycling that they're not doing.

So, I'm not only asking the residents of Gardner Road

to stop wasting good food.

I'm going to challenge them to reform

their rubbish habits across the board,

and become top recyclers as well.

-Evening. How you doing?

-All right, thanks.

I'm Hugh.

Would you all like to gather around?

Don't be shy.

Now, I've already been pounding the streets in Prestwich.

Just in this corner around these houses,

and I bumped into one or two of you yesterday,

but I looked a little bit different.

And, yes, I started taking your bins apart.

I found some really unusual things.

Lovely pair of fluffy slippers.

They were a bit slimy, to be honest,

but we've popped them in the wash, given them a blow-dry

and they've come up all lovely and shiny and almost new.

Look at these. Aren't they sweet?

Absolutely brand-new porcelain piglets.

Could they find love, these three piglets? Yes!

All of this stuff was collected from your dustbins but if anyone

here tonight wants to take it home, that's absolutely fine by us.

-Yes?

-Do you want that TV screen?

LAUGHTER

So the rubbish revolution starts here

in this quiet corner of Greater Manchester.

You've really looted the place, haven't you?

You're not going home empty-handed.

I'll be posting recipes on Twitter and Facebook to help them

rescue food they might otherwise be tempted to chuck.

Is that not working for you?

-I'm not going to lie. Not really.

-OK.

-I'll take this.

-You can take him home!

And I want to persuade them to stop binning clothes, furniture, toys

and anything that can be recycled.

So I'm just going to ask you.

Who is up for seeing what we can do to change the way

Britain deals with waste?

-ALL:

-Yeah!

A couple of no's at the front.

LAUGHTER

I know it's a big ask.

But if they can get their rubbish sorted here

then it could be a blueprint for the rest of Britain to waste less, too.

Of course, I also need to talk to the guys who didn't come to the park,

the ones who, like many of us, I suspect,

are a bit sceptical about whether recycling really makes a difference.

And I've had a tip-off that a woman called Kelly, who works in

a local cafe, is already convinced my rubbish revolution is, well, rubbish.

-Do you two work together?

-Yeah.

-THAT is Kelly's rubbish.

-Correct.

-And that's how you do it.

-Yeah.

You've got plastic bottles, food, tin cans, lots of paper, teabags...

They're not lonely, they're all together. It's easy.

One bag, in the bin, done.

-And then do you come along and re-sort that out?

-Yeah.

-Who's the boss, if I might ask?

-Me.

And what do you think of the way she does it?

She drives me mad!

-So how come you haven't fired her yet?

-Cos she loves me!

Don't you think that looks...?

It looks neat, but what's the difference? It's rubbish.

Kelly's been talking to her customers in the cafe,

and she thinks I haven't got a hope

of getting the whole community to improve their recycling.

So, have you heard about this local campaign to try

and get everyone in the community to...?

I don't think that we should really do it, to be fair, by ourselves.

I don't think it should be our job.

We pay council tax, we pay a lot of things. It should be their job.

-OK, you think they're all wasting their time?

-Yeah.

What do you think happens to it in the end?

It all gets crushed together.

-So you're not convinced that it's even being recycled?

-No.

So plastic bottles, tin cans, glass, it all ends up in the same place?

Yep.

-They're lying to you?

-Yeah, like always.

As far as I can tell, Kelly's mind is made up.

Recycling IS rubbish.

What I don't know is how many people think like that

because, actually, if most people think like that,

well, recycling actually hasn't got a chance.

I'm on the lookout for a few more local sceptics like Kelly

and I'm hatching a plan to challenge their scepticism head-on.

But if wasting good materials makes no sense,

then dumping good food while millions of people in Britain

are going hungry is surely completely immoral.

A little while ago I visited Tattersett Farm.

Their huge pile of parsnips is just a tiny fraction of the produce

being wasted in the UK, all because, according to the supermarkets,

we won't buy veg that doesn't look perfect.

It's putting families and generations of farmers

out of business.

Before I tangle with one of our most powerful retailers,

I want to understand more about cosmetic standards

and the problems they're causing our farmers.

So I'm meeting Tristram Stewart,

founder of an organisation called Feedback,

which, for the last six years, has been fighting to get supermarkets

to reduce their waste.

I've seen shockingly huge piles of waste, not just of waste,

but of good food. I mean, you would have to look close

to see what the problem with them is.

And even then I think you'd have to be an expert or a machine

to tell the difference between those parsnips

and the parsnips that end up on our supermarket shelves.

Their policies are causing hidden mountains of food waste

of which this is one example across the country.

These are cabbages and the problem there was

the outer leaves were not up to spec.

And this is the entire field.

This isn't just a few - the entire field was written off.

Now, what's wrong with these apples, Hugh?

I don't know. Too delicious? Too rosy and gorgeous?!

Ah! The rosy thing is part of it. So supermarkets actually specify

exactly how much redness should appear on different varieties of apple.

-so these are either too red or not red enough.

-Exactly.

It strikes you immediately as a problem that's solvable

and then you think how mad it is that it still hasn't been solved.

We've proved that the public will buy

so-called "cosmetically imperfect" fruit and vegetables.

In 2012, 300,000 tonnes of "ugly", cosmetically imperfect

fruit and vegetables from British farms were sold.

And was there something unusual about that year?

It was a really bad harvest. The same thing happened, 2000, 2008.

We lost 40% of the potatoes in this country.

We didn't import any additional potatoes,

we just put into our supermarkets

all those "ugly" potatoes that previously would have been rejected.

Without telling the public?

No-one even noticed.

-Really?

-No-one noticed, potato sales remained the same.

No-one got more complaints about potatoes.

That's a matter of record, is it?

Absolutely, the bottom line is that those cosmetic standards

are far too strict, and the obvious solution is they need to be relaxed.

-It doesn't sound that hard, really, when you put it like that.

-No!

We have to tell the supermarkets that to cause waste on this scale

is criminal. It's unspeakable, in fact.

Dear Morrisons...

In the past year, 70% of farmers who took part

in an anonymous survey had issues with the way they are

treated by Britain's biggest retailers. And Tristram is clear

that all the major supermarkets are implicated.

But the Hammonds are the only ones

speaking out and they supply just one retailer - Morrisons.

So, for now, I'm putting the spotlight on them.

I've had a pretty swift reply from Morrisons, which is great.

And it's quite brief, which is never a bad thing.

"Please would you ask the producer to get in touch with me

"so I can understand the issue in more detail?"

I've got a couple of issues here.

He wants to talk to the producer, that's you.

He thinks I'm not good enough,

he thinks...perhaps he thinks I don't understand the issues.

If he's going to understand the issues, he needs a proper producer,

not just a pretty face.

It's not that complicated.

Supermarkets are wasting a phenomenal amount of food

and what are we going to do about it?

Hi, it's Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall here, James.

I hope you don't mind that it's me and not my producer.

So you think there is a possibility of a filmed interview with

someone from Morrisons at the farm in Norfolk that we visited?

That's terrific.

Thank you. Bye-bye.

I have to say, almost too easy for me.

I was hoping for a bit more combat, you know.

It isn't in the bag but it's promising.

And if Morrisons step up and really take on the waste problem,

then I think we can push the other supermarkets to follow.

But supermarkets are not the only corporate culprits

wasting food on our high street

The catering industry throws away the equivalent of

two billion meals every year.

Wrapped up in that grim statistic are millions of our farm animals.

Fast-food chicken is a particularly pernicious problem.

It takes at least 15 minutes

to fry chicken pieces on the bone and,

because nobody wants to wait for fast food, it has to be ready

before customers walk in.

And whenever they cook too much, the extra is destined for the bin.

I just want to find out a little bit more about how much chicken

is being wasted by the fast-food industry and I think the best

way to start off is by asking the people who are selling it.

Chicken Valley's policy is two hours and then they throw it away.

But they reckon they only throw away a few pieces a day.

Do you have to throw away a lot of chicken every day?

-Not a lot.

-How much a day?

He thinks he's very good at knowing when he's busy

and so never more than ten pieces a day.

How much do you have to throw away every day?

-Two bags.

-Two dust bins?

-Yeah.

Definitely seems to be KFC that are a bit more gung ho about

what they throw away.

They throw away regularly throughout the day

and, at the end of the day, maybe there's a couple of bins full.

We eat over 60 million

fast-food chickens a year and KFC sell more of them

than anybody else.

So I'm wondering if they're wasting more too.

KFC waste.

But there are no official figures

about how much finger-licking chicken they're binning.

So I'm relying on second-hand information.

There's a figure that keeps cropping up online and I've

seen it in several articles and in various Twitter conversations

and it's reported that KFC are

wasting three tonnes of chicken a year

per branch. There are 850 branches in UK.

So 850 stores times 3,000 kilos of wasted chicken...

..gives me 2,550,000 kilos of chicken

that's being wasted by KFC a year.

I can say for certain that one kilo of chicken represents

at least one bird.

So that's over 2.5 million birds a year that are being farmed,

raised for Kentucky Fried Chicken, are being slaughtered,

processed, battered, diced, fried, put out into the warming tray

and then they go straight to the bin.

2.5 million chickens, that get farmed but never eaten.

KFC are part of one of the largest restaurant chains in the world,

worth over £20 billion

and they were quick to agree to give me an interview,

so perhaps they've already got this whole waste thing under control.

I must admit, I'm actually feeling quite nervous today.

I didn't get a lot of sleep last night.

My heart rate is up, my mouth is a bit dry.

I think there's something about the sheer size of this organization,

KFC, they're a huge global player.

I feel a little daunted to be taking them on.

I was expecting that they'd want the interview to

be at KFC HQ but they've invited me

to a modest branch underneath the Heathrow Airport flight path,

to meet their Head of Health, Safety and Environment, Janet Cox.

Well, I've got a few more minutes before I'm due to meet

Janet from KFC in the store here.

I'm just checking up on the website.

"If we haven't sold a product

"within 90 minutes of it being cooked,

"we will withdraw it from sale.

"In the past, this has meant some chicken is

"discarded even though it's still perfectly fine to eat."

"In the past."

That suggests, unambiguously, that the problem is solved.

Is it really?

Have I come here to hear about how KFC have already

solved their waste problem? I can't wait to find out.

-Hi, Janet.

-Pleased to meet you.

The first thing Janet wants me to know

is that the figures I got hold of on the internet have been misreported.

It's true that 2.7 tonnes of food is wasted by each store

but it's not all chicken.

Just less than half of that is actually chicken,

so the other half is made up of various other items that have

either gone past their use-by date or we're just unable to use.

I think we can still say

that you're throwing away one million birds a year.

-What do you think of that figure?

-So you're absolutely right.

It is a high figure and that is why we're doing everything

we can to...and looking at different ways

and how we can make sure that that chicken is reused in a positive way.

It turns out that KFC are piloting a scheme to donate unsold food

to local charities.

And, by happy coincidence, this is one of the stores in that scheme.

Chicken that would normally go in the bin is frozen

and then collected twice a week

-And you're giving it away?

-Yes.

It's all free for collection at the YMCA?

Yup. We're coming back for more.

Coming back? Keep it coming, Janet, did you hear that?

Keep that waste coming! These guys love it!

So the future of KFC waste redistribution in action.

Yes, absolutely.

-How handy that they just happened to pop in when I was here.

-Absolutely.

Giving away unsold food to those in need is a sound policy

for big food companies but

I want to know just how ambitious the Colonel's plans are.

How many restaurants have now started this redistribution scheme?

So we're currently in six restaurants.

Out of how many in the UK?

So in the UK at the moment we have around 870 KFC restaurants.

It's a long way to go, I mean, you're less than 1%.

-Where do you want to get to?

-We want to get to a point

where all...as many restaurants as possible...

You nearly said "all" there, Janet. What's wrong with all?

All sounds great to me.

So we do have...we know, on the work that we've done over the last year

or so, that there are a number of restaurants, due to location,

where there are not charities

located within close enough vicinity.

So they're going to be harder to crack...

-They will be harder to crack.

-..but what commitment can you give me?

Can you put a date on when you might get half done?

-End of 2016?

-Easily.

By the end of 2016 we will commit to being half of our restaurants.

Half of your restaurants, so well over 400. Well, you open

new ones all the time, so it's probably going to be

more than 450 KFCs by the end of 2016

will have a distribution charity thing in place

to help deal with the unsold food and prevent it going to waste.

That's the commitment I've made.

You've been very clear, which I wholly applaud, but can

I just contrast your clarity with some of the stuff on your website?

"If we haven't sold a product within 90 minutes

"we'll withdraw it from sale.

"In the past, this has meant some chicken is

"discarded, even though it's still perfectly fine to eat."

The use of the phrase "in the past",

it really does imply that you've solved this problem.

Whoever actually writes these things, can they take

a look at the phrases they've chosen and straighten them out a bit?

So that people, instead of getting the impression that you've really

solved this problem, get the honest confession that you've just started

looking at it and you're ambitious but you've got a long way to go.

I'm sure we can do that.

It is important that we keep our information

updated on our website to tell our customers

and all the general public what we are doing.

You couldn't be more on the record about that,

so I heartily congratulate you but look forward very much

to my return visit and seeing how you're doing on delivering it.

-Thank you.

-Thanks very much, Janet.

If companies like KFC can make changes to

reduce their waste,

then surely the whole food industry can step up to the challenge.

And I'll be back in six months to see how they're delivering

on their promise.

What's sometimes harder to understand is

how our small individual actions can make a big difference.

But I'm convinced that they really can.

And that's what I'm hoping to prove with my

rubbish revolution in Prestwich.

Morning. Because the biggest single cause of food waste

in the UK is still the four million tonnes that we throw away at home.

That's out of date, that can go.

9th of July!

I just forget what's in the fridge, really.

Bread, carrots, courgette, pate and tomatoes.

-Is that all being thrown out?

-Yes.

12th of August. It's only the 12th of August today

and you're throwing them out?

That can go, that can go, that can go. Bag's getting heavy.

We went in the shop yesterday for no reason whatsoever

and we came out with a bag full of just rubbish.

I suspect a little kitchen savvy could save most of us

a load of food and a decent pile of cash.

And I've persuaded Joanne and her husband Peter to let me

try and rescue some of the food they would normally throw away.

-What a lovely home.

-Thank you.

-Beautiful.

One of the reasons I've come to see you is cos

you say you throw away quite a lot of food. Is that the case?

-Yes, we do.

-Yes.

Well, if it's all right with you, I think we should get

-straight down to business.

-OK.

And I want to see all the food that you're even

-thinking about throwing away.

-Oh, dear.

That is a well-stocked fridge, Joanne.

You've got so much food here. How big's the family?

How many kids do you have?

Just one at home now.

But, unfortunately, my mind still cooks for six of us

because we have four grown-up children.

So you're three at home cooking for six?

-Absolutely.

-No wonder you've got leftovers.

We've got some panini.

A slightly stale panini.

Some mixed salad there.

Always the one that gets left over, yeah.

-Hummus, wrinkly tomatoes.

-Tomatoes, wrinkly.

Seeded batch.

OK, gosh. I'm running out of hands.

Oh!

-Don't worry. I've got it.

-Absolutely no problem.

-I've got it.

Let's get it on the table and then I'll rescue the grapes.

Joanne was about to chuck out

at least 15 quid's worth of food. That sounds like a lot

but if she's doing this every week, it's only just over the national

average and most of this haul is still perfectly good to eat.

The hummus is a few days past its date, OK.

-As is everything.

-As is everything.

-Have a sniff.

-Smells like hummus to me.

It smells like it did when it was fresh.

It smells fine, doesn't it? And I'd eat that as is, raw.

This is clearly fine.

It's gone a bit discoloured, though, hasn't it?

That's just a little bit of oxidation

because you've taken the lid off the package.

-So that's definitely back in the fridge.

-Thanks.

Hardly needed to go shopping.

Joanne spends up to 6 quid

a week on cartons of smoothies but it's so easy to make your own.

Just trim off the bruised bits of your tired fruit

and whizz the rest in a blender with yoghurt or juice.

Any extra fruit can be saved in the freezer,

where it'll keep for weeks.

And, because it's going to end up in the next smoothie, you don't

have to be too fussy about small blemishes.

What do you think might happen

if you ate a grape with a little brown spot on it?

What's your worst nightmare?

Actually, I suppose my worst nightmare would be that

I get some horrific disease from it.

Some illness, some sickness.

So if I promise you it won't do any harm at all,

-let's just judge it on taste.

-OK. Go for it.

HUGH LAUGHS

Actually, it's delicious.

For the last couple of years,

Joanne has been unwell, so Peter has taken on most of the domestic duties.

Peter's been an absolute rock and he has taken over not only going

to work full-time but actually doing a lot of the cooking as well.

-That's very good of you, well done.

-I'm filling up.

-You've stocked up.

I feel 100% better

and I would love to actually get back into cooking a little bit now.

What am I actually doing to prepare these beautiful wrinkly offerings?

-Well, they don't look brilliant, do they?

-No.

But there's a really good trick. Have you got a grater?

Yes, yes, I have a grater.

-Ah!

-There, what do you think of that?

I think that is fantastic. Absolutely fantastic.

Clever trick, huh?

So, from those three wrinkly, squashy tomatoes, we've got this lovely pulp.

You can rescue almost any bin-bound, bendy old veg

with a simple soup.

And even salad leaves that have lost their crunch can go in.

The chickpeas and garlic in the hummus will give the soup

more body and a nice kick.

Wow, look at that! It's like cream.

Can I tell you something?

I have never put hummus in a soup before in my life.

-Really?

-Never.

-Love it! That's brilliant.

Stale bread is better for croutons than fresh bread

because it absorbs less oil when fried.

-Ah, that is sweet.

-Wow!

You've made yourself a little crouton love heart.

-It's a piece of fried bread, isn't it?

-It is, you're right.

In Manchester, it's fried bread.

I would never believe,

if somebody showed those ingredients earlier on...

It didn't look very promising, did it?

..that they would be tasting like this. No.

Do you think you will do more cooking now with food

-that you would've otherwise have chucked?

-Yeah.

-Really?

-Honest truth. Yes, I do.

I actually think this is perhaps the impetus I've needed to get me

going today, so thank you very much.

Well, that would be brilliant. If that's the case, I'll be thrilled.

Yeah.

-Cheers, good health.

-Thank you.

Oh, that's good. I bet you don't throw a lot of that away.

No, there's none of that goes out of date.

With a little effort, we can all waste less and save more.

But I can't be checking the bins and fridges of all the houses

in my Prestwich experiment.

So I've started a social media page.

Wastenot Prestwich is officially up and running.

The local community have really engaged in social media

and they've been talking to each other on Twitter

and swapping tips on Facebook and I've been posting a few

tips of my own and a few recipes and it's all got really, really busy.

And that's very exciting and it suggests that some of them,

at least, are really, really engaged.

Just been in the fridge, pulled out the lettuce

and it's looking a little sad. We have a top tip.

If you add it to a bowl of water with ice in it,

it should be nice and crisp again.

Waste not, want not, Hugh.

And lovely Joanne has just posted a little video of herself

making a smoothie from that fruit that she was about to bin.

Have we got a jug that measures 100ml?

Please, don't measure 100 mill. No, you don't

have to measure 100 mill, Joanne.

I shouldn't have said that. I should have said slosh

a bit of orange juice in.

100ml.

It's not that often that I get to see somebody following one

of my recipes on film and I have to resist the temptation to

shout at them.

It's quite a lesson, actually.

I'm hoping we can create

a recipe for change in Prestwich that can be copied across the UK.

Delicious.

In the end, saving money by keeping edible food

out of the bin is common sense but I think it might be a bit

harder to get them to improve their recycling.

Until 15 years ago,

most of our rubbish went to landfill sites like this one.

But burying hundreds of million of tonnes of rubbish in holes

in the ground isn't a great idea.

So the Government slapped a hefty tax on landfill and, today, more

and more of our rubbish is being incinerated to make electricity.

But when it comes to reusable materials, like plastic,

glass and metals, incineration is a waste of good resources.

Yet even after years of campaigning to persuade us

all to recycle, around a quarter of people in the UK remain unconvinced.

So over the last few weeks, I've been recruiting

the sceptics of Gardner Road to see if I can change their minds.

Do you wonder what actually happens to your recycling?

If you do do it, where does it go? Where does it end up?

-Yes.

-Yes.

-Yes, without a doubt.

If you saw what was actually happening, then you'd actually

believe what they're telling you because when they say,

"Oh, we're recycling this percentage of stuff,"

then you think, "Oh, are we really?" Because we don't know, do we?

We're just being told figures by a council that not an awful

lot of people trust, in general, anyway.

Do you think it would make you feel better about recycling

if you knew what did happen to it?

-Yeah.

-Yeah, you'd have knowledge of it.

Yeah, you'd know you were doing the right thing, maybe,

or whether you were doing the wrong thing.

-I don't know what goes on with it, I've never been explained.

-Yeah.

I'm hoping these recycling deniers can be converted with a tour of

the place they don't think exists - a materials-recovery facility.

Based on the conversations I've had with these guys so far,

I think it's clear who the toughest nut to crack is going to be.

It's Kelly from the caff.

-So you're not convinced that it's even being recycled?

-No.

-It all ends up in the same place?

-Yeah.

-They're lying to you?

-Yeah. Like always.

-Ever been anywhere like this before?

-No.

-No?

Each council in the UK has its own rules about what can be recycled.

One in seven don't want any glass. Others won't take card.

Here they want your plastic bottles but not your plastic bags.

But, wherever you live, the contents of your recycling bin

will end up in a facility like this.

And the first job is to remove by hand all the items

that can't be recycled.

So the stuff that's coming into this bit of the plant

looks like a raggedy old mess

but it is the contents of those recycling bins, isn't it?

It is. Yes. Things that are going to get stuck

and things that are going to mess up the quality of the recycling.

Frying pan.

Bits of a shower just came through there.

But it is predominantly tins, plastic bottles

-and glass bottles that's coming in.

-It is.

Shall we go through, Denise?

So there's not quite so much to see here

because it's encased in the machinery

but there's a really powerful magnet that's lifting anything that's steel.

That's all disappearing at this stage and heading off to a different

part of the plant and then the steel from this point on is gone.

Next, the rubbish bounces through a machine that smashes

the glass to smithereens.

The little fragments drop through the gaps and onto another

conveyor belt. All that should be left now is aluminium and plastic.

Right, here is another magnet and that repels the aluminium

and it's going to be heading into that cabin there.

There's a guy in there who's doing the final bit of sorting,

anything that's got through to there that isn't aluminium,

and then it'll all gets squished up into these lovely bales of cans.

I really want you all to have a good look in here

because it's a bit of quite cool technology.

The plastic bottles that are left are mainly divided

into two categories. They are either clear or they're opaque

and there's a laser in there that can tell the difference.

When the laser spots an opaque bottle, that squirty noise,

that is a jet of air blasting the opaque bottles into a separate

track from the clear bottles.

You can see that happening if you look down here.

Once the materials are sorted, they're sellable commodities again.

So if my gang, and others like them, really did

mend their recycling ways, how much difference would it make?

Well, if the whole of Greater Manchester could be persuaded

to put stuff in the right bins, it would save the local

councils £25 million a year.

And if you multiply

that across the country, we could pay for an extra 25,000 nurses.

So do you think spending time here today has changed the way you

-think about recycling?

-Yeah, it has a bit, yeah, yeah.

It's still not the finished product, is it?

It's just showing that it's being sorted.

Ah, so you think now that they've done this with it,

maybe they just chuck it in a hole in the ground?

A neater hole, yeah.

Are you still a bit unconvinced about

-whether this can become anything worthwhile?

-Yeah, yeah.

-It still just looks like a pile of rubbish.

-It is a pile of rubbish.

-And you still think that basically that should now be thrown away?

-Yeah.

Would you like to see something made out of this stuff

-that doesn't look or smell like rubbish?

-Yeah, the outcome of it.

All right, come with me. Come and have a look. One last thing.

Everything we make from recycled stuff saves us

from mining more raw materials from the planet's dwindling stocks.

And, as the technology improves, our recycling can be combined

with other materials in unexpected ways.

And this is the end product of recycling?

-That is made from plastic bottles.

-Really?

-I can't believe that.

I can't believe it, actually, I really can't.

Plastic bottles. Plastic bottles. Feel that.

I'm impressed. They're very, very good quality as well.

Recycled steel. Soup cans.

You know, tins of beans.

Never would've thought that.

This last bit has just made me impressed cos they do clothes.

OK. As long as you go on recycling those bottles you can keep the coat.

Oh, thank you.

My band of rubbish recyclers have all promised to

change their ways and I'm hoping they will spread the word

through the rest of Prestwich. And, while the rubbish revolution

on Gardner Road seems to be taking off, I want to get back on

the trail of the supermarkets and their wasteful cosmetic standards.

-It's not a pretty sight for my eyes, anyway.

-No, no.

We have to tell the supermarkets that to cause waste on this

scale is criminal.

I e-mailed Morrisons to request

an interview and, initially, they were really enthusiastic:

"Hi, Hugh and team,

"we're looking into ways that we might be able to help

"Tattersett Farm and perhaps involve Hugh in any possible NPD solution."

Pretty sure that's New Product Development.

That sounds to me like Morrisons might be offering me

my very own parsnip ready-meal range.

Very exciting.

But over the next couple of months, I couldn't pin them down and then

they told me the Hammonds no longer wanted us to film on the farm.

OK, this just in from Morrisons.

"The farmer has told us that he's unable to take

"part in the filming because he's too busy."

I was getting confused because Olly told me

it was Morrisons who were dodging the interview.

We heard from Morrisons that you didn't want to film any more

and I just wondered, what's changed?

But when you say pressure from Morrisons, what sort of pressure?

They've said they don't want you to do the interview on telly?

HE SIGHS

Morrisons strenuously deny that they put any pressure

on the Hammonds but, eventually, Olly did pull out of the filming,

saying he could only talk after the last parsnip crop had been paid for.

And, soon after, I got this message from Morrisons.

"We've carefully considered your offer of the opportunity to

"talk about parsnips and have decided that it's not one for us.

"I'll explain why. Several years ago, we did introduce wonky parsnips

"into our stores but they simply didn't sell.

"Customers didn't want them."

It's so annoying and you know it seems to me to be silly

because engagement is the key here.

No-one expects the supermarkets to instantly have all the solutions

to this very, very difficult problem but running away from the problem,

for me, that's not acceptable.

So I'm not taking no for an answer.

All the supermarkets claim

that their customers won't buy veg with minor blemishes

but I want to prove that their cosmetic standards

are way too strict.

And where better to do it than in front of a busy Morrisons store?

And how better to brand my parsnips

than with this very agreeable colour scheme?

Roll up, roll up, Morrisons customers!

Come on, everyone.

They're all rejects.

-Really?

-It's silly. They're perfectly fine.

Would it surprise you if I told you these are rejects?

-Wow.

-It's wrong.

-It's wrong?

-It's very wrong. It's ridiculous.

Absolutely ridiculous.

I would absolutely cook with that parsnip.

-What is wrong with that one?

-Just a little bit bruising on the top.

-They shouldn't be wasted.

-They shouldn't be wasted.

You hear that, Morrisons? These are your customers. They shouldn't be wasted.

-No. definitely not.

-Are you a Morrisons customer?

-I am, yeah.

And what do you think?

-Don't throw them away.

-Don't throw them away, we'll buy them.

-Are you sure you don't have a problem with that?

-No.

I don't even know the difference.

Everybody I met said they would

buy a cosmetically imperfect parsnip but the other reason I'm here

is to hassle Morrisons into giving me that interview.

Hello, everybody!

Just to say that all Morrisons customers are offered a free

bag of parsnips.

Don't go home empty handed.

Good morning, Morrisons customers!

Free bags of parsnips for Morrisons customers here this morning.

-How're you doing?

-I'm good, how are you?

-Really good.

-Are you from Morrisons?

-Yeah.

-Are you the manager of the store?

-I am, yeah.

-Terrific, OK.

-Well, it's really good to talk to you.

-Yeah.

You're the first person from Morrisons I've been able to talk to

and I've been trying for four months now.

-OK.

-We are here out of frustration

because they haven't been able to give us someone to talk on camera.

-Do you want me to go and... make a call?

-By all means.

If you think you can get someone down, that would be great.

-I'll...

-Very friendly store manager from Morrisons, very helpful.

Just going to call the press office

and see if he can arrange an on-camera interview this morning.

Who knows? Might happen.

A couple of hours later, I got an e-mail from the press office

suggesting an interview could be back on the cards. I hope so

because, after today, I'm convinced that Britain's shoppers will

buy the produce that our supermarkets are rejecting.

My goodness, you're eating a raw parsnip already.

That is a vote of confidence, is it not?

David Potts, the Morrisons boss,

says that he listens to his customers.

All the supermarket bosses say they listen to their customers.

Well, today, I've been listening to Morrisons customers

and the message is very clear.

Produce like this is perfectly good.

Throwing it away is madness.

I think that is a very clear message.

The public seem to be responding to my war on waste...

-ALL:

-Yay!

..and that's massively encouraging.

Because what's good for waste is good for all of us.

-Hi, Joanne, how are you?

-Hi! Come in!

We saved about £25 on that shopping bill.

Just by being a bit more careful and not throwing stuff away?

Yeah, and I actually think

we probably could have saved a little bit more.

But I'm learning.

And what brings you to these neck of the woods?

I'd like a quick word with you.

-May I borrow Kelly for a second, Carol?

-Course you can!

Who's that?

I can't believe you've filmed me secretly!

HUGH LAUGHS

-Food in the food.

-Mm-hm.

-Paper in the paper.

-Wait for it...

-How do you know what's coming up?

-Because I've done it!

You're that confident you've been good?

Yeah, I'm impressed with myself.

-I'm incredibly impressed.

-I'm really impressed with myself.

I'm happy that I'm doing it, and obviously it learnt me

a lot that day when I seen what it could be made into.

-I need a bigger food bin now!

-I think you do.

-Since all the food's actually going in it.

-Yeah.

Done it!

HUGH LAUGHS

Next week - I tackle our growing mountain of discarded clothes.

How long do you think it takes Britain to throw away

-that many clothes?

-Two or three days?

-Two or three days?

-Yeah.

Six hours?

Six hours? You're getting close.

Morrisons finally open their doors to discuss the waste problem.

I've got a big wodge of cancelled orders.

What's happening here?

But I'm sorry to say that it's too late for the Hammonds.

After 30-odd years, it's now coming to an end today.

Who do we need more - the people who grow our food,

or the people who sell it to us?

I think it's the people who grow our food.

I'm spoiling for a fight now. I'm... I don't know. I'm just... I'm fuming.