Episode 2 Hugh's War on Waste

We're 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?

We chuck away over £400,000 worth of clothes every day.

That looks really nearly new.

And at a time when millions of people in Britain are struggling to pay their food bills,

a third of all the food we produce is being wasted.

Last week, I put the spotlight on the horrendous amount of food

we're chucking at home.

-That's got another two weeks to go.

-But it's been opened.

We came out with a bag full of just rubbish.

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

-Why?

-No.

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

Now it's time to confront our supermarkets

over their hidden food waste,

both in their stores...

Oh, my God! It's absolutely rammed.

..and on our farms.

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've got a big wodge of cancelled orders. What's happening here?

They can sell their produce anywhere they like.

If our buying practices are so bad, why are they still selling to us?

If you tell me where you shop...

Together, we can change the way we all deal with this problem

for the better and for ever,

so please join my war on waste.

We buy over 40 million tonnes of food every year

and the vast majority of that comes through just seven supermarkets.

I've been trying to find out just how much

of that huge mountain of food

our biggest retailers are throwing away.

But if you look at their websites,

you'd think they hardly have a waste problem at all.

I'm on Sainsbury's website here.

Now, apparently, Sainsbury's want to be a zero waste company.

Tesco want to be world leaders in eradicating food waste.

And one thing almost all the supermarkets are saying is,

they do everything they can to avoid wasting any food

that's still fit for human consumption.

Now I want to find out - is that really true?

Like most of us, Sam and Catie get their food from a supermarket,

the only difference is they wait until the tills are shut

and everyone's gone home.

-Is that a Tesco up there?

-That is.

-Is this the one we're after?

Yeah, we're going to go and have a look.

And the food they are after is not on the shelves,

but in the bins round the back.

The only snag is, it's not entirely legal.

I suddenly feel a little bit nervous.

-It's definitely closed, isn't it?

-Yeah.

Should be, it's ten past midnight.

They've been skip diving from the backs of supermarkets

for over seven years

and they tell me that Britain's biggest retailers

are secretly chucking away tonnes of perfectly good food.

Oh, my God! Oh, hello!

It's absolutely rammed.

That's not what I was expecting at all.

OK, that's 1st of July milk.

This is natural mineral water. 13th May 2017.

-Pork scratching.

-Energy tablets. One apple.

-There's beer. There you go.

-Mints.

According to Sam and Catie, you can find hauls like this

round the back of supermarkets all over Britain.

They reckon they've fed at least 25,000 people

in their Bristol cafe, Skipchen,

all with binned produce like this,

which supermarkets claim isn't fit for human consumption.

Is this...? Ah, Mr Ambassador, you are spoiling us.

There is a gold mine of Ferrero Rocher.

It just keeps coming.

Has anyone ever pursued you for breaking the law?

For taking food away from their premises?

I would love them to and they haven't.

I sat in the back of a police car for 40 minutes whilst they radioed through

and I said to the police, "Please try and get them to press charges,"

and even the police turned round and said to me,

"They're never going to do it, are they?"

And I was like, "No, they're not. It would be awful PR for them."

Having cleaned out Tesco's finest,

we're heading down the road to see what's on offer at Waitrose.

What have we got here?

-Oh, my goodness!

-Here we go.

This is today's date.

-It is. It's all today.

-I mean...

-Lovely salads.

-Pea shoots.

You know what, you could just put the whole of this bin

in the back of your van because it's all good stuff.

Oh, look! Heston from Waitrose. Chicken tikka curry skewers.

Sorry, Heston, they didn't want that today.

Whoa! We've hit the fruit mother load.

-Look at this.

-Look at that. That's beautiful. Look at those.

Oh, my goodness! Look at them, and those are not even overripe.

These bins are just full of bananas.

You do get a better class of waste at Waitrose, do you not?

That looks like a pretty good haul to me.

I mean, lots of things you can do with this.

How does it stand up to what you would usually hope to get?

-Um, I would say that it's below average.

-Below average? Really?

-Yep.

-It's quite shocking.

This food shouldn't actually be here in the first place.

They don't want people to find out about their dirty little secret.

This branch of Waitrose has binned hundreds of pounds worth

of perfectly good food tonight...

..but that's not something they'll be admitting to their customers.

Here's what it says on the Waitrose website -

"Surplus food that is fit for consumption

"is donated to local charities."

And that's the front-facing message that Waitrose are putting out

to all their customers about their food waste policy,

and I think it's flawed.

In fact, I think that it's just basically not true.

Either they are deliberately misleading its customers

or Waitrose don't know what's happening in their stores.

And now I've got the perfect opportunity to tell them

what we found, because they've agreed to give me an interview.

Armed with the footage from our skip diving mission,

I'm meeting Quentin Clark - their head of sustainability.

-Hi, Quentin.

-Hi, Hugh. How are you?

-Very good to see you.

As you know, I'm looking at the problem of waste,

particularly food waste

and particularly how the supermarkets are coping with it

and contributing to it.

You're a massive store, loads of fresh produce.

Inevitably, you're not going to sell all of it.

What happens to the stuff that's surplus, that's heading for that use-by date?

If it's left on the shelf,

first thing we'll do is, we'll reduce it to customers,

then we'll reduce it and sell it to staff.

The next stage is, we donate that to organisations

that are local around our store.

This is Waitrose in Old Sodbury.

What have we got here? Oh, my goodness!

-Lovely salad.

-Pea shoots.

These bins are just full of bananas.

You do get a better class of waste at Waitrose, do you not?

It's well stated on your website that food that is fit

for human consumption, we'll find a distribution,

we'll get it to a charity. That's your policy.

Are those things sort of falling through the net?

Well, clearly they are.

Um, I mean, but the principle behind all this is,

and I stand by all of that,

that the commitment is that we don't want any food that is

fit for human consumption to actually be disposed of, OK?

If I go to your website right now,

it will still basically tell me that food that's fit for

human consumption goes to charities

and that you've kind of dealt with that problem.

Well, OK. I think it's a fair point, it's a fair call.

That's not intended to deliberately deceive or anything like that,

but it needs to be refreshed

because we don't want food which should be eaten not to be eaten.

Well, let's end on that note because who does?

It's good to hear Waitrose say they could do better,

but if we're going to demand that our supermarkets stop wasting food,

we better take a look at our own habits too

because we chuck away a staggering four million tonnes

of edible food every year.

In a nine-week experiment,

I've challenged the residents of Gardner Road, Prestwich,

to transform the way they deal with their waste.

Now, I want to make sure that you're not throwing away good food.

Oh, there's almost a whole baguette. Is that a whole baguette?

With just three weeks to go,

the Waste Not Prestwich Facebook page is hotting up,

as residents post their food-saving tips and recipes.

We're just eating these rather stale crackers, here.

You put them in the microwave for ten seconds.

-Oh, yeah.

-Sounds all right. No, seriously.

Doesn't matter what the date says on an egg,

it might not have gone off,

so the way you test is, you get some water...

and, if it drops to the bottom, it's not gone off. Good egg!

And I've joined in the fun myself.

There's a moment when your strawberries just start to turn.

You can actually make them last a good while longer.

A little shake of sugar, a squeeze of lemon,

and if I pop them in the fridge, they're good for another couple of days.

But this experiment isn't just about food waste.

I've asked the residents here to stop chucking recyclable glass,

plastic and cans in the wrong bin.

And that bit of our rubbish revolution isn't going quite so well.

-Hey, Michelle. I'm Hugh.

-Hi. Nice to meet you.

25-year-old painter and decorator Michelle

has the most notorious bins in the neighbourhood.

Apparently they are such a mess that the council has refused to go near them.

Right.

-Looks like there's a bit of food in there, Michelle.

-I know.

-That's not meant to go in the recycling.

-I know.

The Spam tin is allowed in, but the Spam isn't.

That's my little brother, not me.

That's good, that's good.

I mean, it's quite good recycling, apart from the food.

This isn't all your waste. Where's your...?

-Have you got more, then?

-In the back.

-Do you want to come and look?

-Ah.

Hang on. So what's in there, then?

You don't want to open it, it's not recycled.

Oh! Oh, my God!

Doesn't smell good, Michelle. How long has that been there?

-A couple of months.

-So they're refusing to take it, basically?

-Yeah.

-So how will you get rid of that?

-I'll just leave it.

Well, it's not just going to go away, Michelle, is it?

Might do, one day.

I think this could be a little unpleasant, but I'm determined to

help Michelle get back on track with her recycling.

That's one of the most revolting things I've seen for a long time,

-but your shiny fork...

-I don't want it.

-Is it yours?

Plastic bottles in there, general rubbish in there.

Oh, I don't know why you're doing it.

A lot of this is going in the recycling, which is quite satisfying.

It's half tins of... Bleurgh!

I think it's very, very ancient cat litter. Really strong ammonia smell.

Let me look. Oh!

Oh, my God!

I'm going to be sick.

Of course, it's easy to be rubbish at recycling.

Walk away.

But once you get started, it's surely not that hard to put different stuff

in different bins.

Oh, it smells good now. Look at that.

What next, Michelle? Where do we go from here?

I don't even know.

-Come on.

-We start our recycle - that's where we go.

-Yeah?

-Yeah, definitely.

-I'll give it a good go.

-Great.

I'll pop back in a few weeks' time

and I'll be so glad if we don't have to do that again.

'We went somewhere where people

'should never have to go with their rubbish.

'Literally one of the worst smells I've ever smelt.'

Michelle doesn't want to go there again. I think now, you know,

compared to that, recycling, it's a piece of cake, isn't it?

When I first had a snoop in the bins round here,

the thing that shocked me the most

was the piles and piles of perfectly decent clothes.

And it's a nationwide problem.

We're binning over £150 million worth of clothes every year

and they end up either being incinerated or buried in landfill.

I should really give them to charity and stuff like that,

but sometimes I don't really find the time, so I'd say my clothes

are what I tend to waste a lot.

I would definitely bin underwear, socks, pyjamas and stuff.

-I threw out about three pairs of jeans the other day.

-Some holey jeans.

I generally only throw away things

that are not very good quality or really old.

Clothes are cheaper than they've ever been

and on average we own four times more garments than we did 30 years ago.

About every two weeks, I go for a big shop.

There's no need to buy as much as we buy, but...I like it.

I don't, like, regret spending money. I just think,

"Oh..." Like, I'm happy now that I've bought myself something.

So, from the moment you walked into...Zara,

you actually decided you were going to buy something?

She picked a handful of stuff up. She went for it, didn't you?

-It was on sale.

-What about you?

Would you have found it hard not to buy something?

Yeah, cos, like, when you get the money and you don't spend it, like,

you go home pretty upset,

thinking, "I've not done...I've not done my job."

Clearly, a lot of people go clothes shopping these days

not because they need new clothes, but because it makes them feel good.

As you might have guessed, I'm a little out of touch

with the culture of fast fashion.

With those on, you must be taller than I am.

Yeah, I'm quite tall with them on.

-Becky, do you think Amelia buys too many clothes?

-Yeah, I do.

It tends to be, she buys things and then they don't...

She doesn't wear them again.

I recently bought this.

So what's the future for that particular garment?

I might be able to wear this once at summer.

-Once.

-Yeah.

-OK.

-But stripes might go out.

They're in now, but next week or two weeks' time...

might be all over for stripes?

Yeah. Floral.

'16-year-old Amelia goes clothes shopping with her

'mates at least once a week, and I sense that's not remotely unusual.'

How long can a favourite thing stay favourite before it has to

just be recognised as no longer a thing?

-Two weeks.

-So, that means, if you've had it for two weeks

-and you've worn it a few times, it's old?

-Yeah.

Guess how long this has been one of my favourite pairs of trousers?

-How long?

-Oh, about ten years.

Ten years?!

Who's your fashion idol? Whose fashion style do you most admire?

Zoella.

Hello, everyone! It has been a long time since

I have done a Primark haul...

'I must admit that, until now,

'I hadn't heard of Zoella and other the fashion vloggers

-'like Tanya Burr...'

-Oh, should I, shouldn't I?

'..and Patricia Bright.'

I don't know, what colour would you call this?

It's like a burnt orange, burnt orange.

'..but they are some of the biggest stars in the online world.'

She's got eight million subscribers.

-Eight million?!

-Eight million.

-And what do you think is good about her?

-You can relate to her.

She doesn't buy all expensive clothes and everything -

she buys clothes from high-street shops like Primark.

This is £5. Bargainous.

So, basically, she's just going through her shopping and talking about it?

Yeah. A haul is where YouTubers just show you what they've bought.

So, a haul means she's been shopping

and she's showing you what she's bought.

# I wish that I could be like the cool kids. #

There's something very clever about the tone of these vlogs.

It's like you are talking to your best friend.

"I've been shopping, look what I bought!

"And I've got this!

"Ooh, I think this might look good with my jeans."

Almost like they're offering to the viewer to try on, almost like saying,

"You'd look great in that!"

# I wish that I could be like the cool kids... #

Vloggers like Zoella are part of a turbo-charged fashion industry

that seems hellbent on persuading us to buy more than we need.

And because the clothes are so cheap, we don't think twice about throwing

them away to make room for more.

I suspect that tackling the nation's addiction to fast fashion

is probably beyond me,

but I do want to make us

think harder about what we do with the clothes we no longer want.

There's actually seven tonnes of clothes here,

10,000 separate garments, and I've been given permission to

bring them here to one of the busiest shopping centres

in the whole of the UK. Why? Well, because I think it's a good

idea if people see what seven tonnes of discarded clothes looks like.

I'm standing on a pile of seven tonnes of clothes,

10,000 separate garments under my feet.

But here's a question I have for you.

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

this many clothes?

Seven tonnes, 10,000 garments.

How long do you think it takes Britain

to throw away that many clothes?

-I'd say about two or three days.

-Two or three days?

-Yeah.

I'd say a week.

You think that's a week's worth of what Britain throws away?

-Possibly half a day.

-Half a day?

-A couple of hours.

-Within a few... A couple of hours?

-Yes.

-How long do you think?

-Three hours.

-You think a matter of hours.

-A few days.

-A few days.

-Six hours.

-Six hours.

You're getting close.

The truth is, it takes Britain just ten minutes -

ten minutes - to throw away seven tonnes of clothes.

Just ten minutes.

-You're lying.

-No, no, ten minutes.

-Ten minutes, I'm afraid.

-Ten minutes is insane.

When you can see it visually, it's more...more of a shock, I think.

-I'm absolutely horrified.

-Are you?

-Yeah.

Now, there is another way.

As you'll see with all these clothes today, they don't need to be binned,

they don't need to be thrown away for ever. They're perfectly wearable,

perfectly usable, somebody somewhere surely would like them.

So come and have a look and see what you think.

I'm going to take down the barriers now. Come on in.

What do you think of this big pile?

-Shocking.

-It's pretty shocking, yeah.

Charity shops will take anything and if they don't think they can sell it,

they'll move it on to someone who can use it in a different way.

'So there's no excuse to bin any of our old clothes.

Even if you think they've have had their day, they can still end up

as a recycled mop head or stuffing for a car seat.

When we throw this stuff away,

we throw away all the work that's gone into them and all the resources,

the water, the oil, the energy, the machines, the human labour.

That all goes in the bin, too.

Chucking away clothes at our current rate is clearly

an environmental disaster,

but throwing away a third of all the food we produce...

well, that's simply immoral.

Yet around 20% of the crops grown in Britain never get eaten

because our supermarkets don't think we'll buy their produce

unless it looks absolutely perfect.

Well, there is a very happy-looking carrot. I must be in the right place.

Poskitt's is one of the UK's most successful farms.

With an annual turnover of over £30 million,

they supply around 10% of all the carrots eaten in Britain.

-So this is a big artic load just come in?

-Yeah.

-How many of those would arrive in a day?

-About ten. Ten or 12.

-Ten or 12 a day?

-Yes.

-Blimey!

-Christmas, week 20.

That is a staggering amount of carrots!

-So ten of these is how many tonnes of carrots?

-About 290 tonnes today.

I've never seen so many carrots in my life!

Can I see where they're ending up?

Yeah, we're going to the pack house now.

All our supermarkets apply cosmetic standards to their produce -

guidelines that define exactly what's acceptable.

Guy Poskitt has invested a small fortune in machinery that slices,

dices and grates the less-than-perfect carrots

into other product ranges,

but he's still losing 3,000 tonnes of perfectly edible carrots

every year to cosmetic standards.

This is all the waste that's coming out of the pack house today.

That's just from today? The beginning of the day, this was...

-That's today's waste.

-..there was nothing here? No!

Normally, in the winter time, we can sell this for animal feed,

but now the sun's shining and all the cows are out in the fields,

we'll have to dump it.

It's the relentlessness of that conveyor belt, just dropping

perfectly good carrots onto a pile, knowing that they're now rubbish.

-What's wrong with those?

-Nothing.

-We've grown that.

We've worked hard to produce that

and now we're going to throw it away.

-How do you feel about that?

-Immoral.

Yeah.

It's insane, isn't it?

If farmers like Guy weren't forced to waste

so much of the good food they're producing, they could grow

a bit less with fewer resources and maybe even charge us less, too.

And, of course, his slightly curvy carrot

tastes just as good as the straight ones.

These are what you call minor defects.

That's got some splitting in it. That's quite misshaped.

Probably, you'd get away with that one, to be honest.

That's some scab but that'd easily peel off, you know.

-Couple of strokes with a peeler and it's gone.

-That one's too long.

Is that really a problem to somebody?

Why couldn't you just do that and put both halves in the bag?

Because it'd be classed as broken then, so they're defects.

I know, but they're both fine, aren't they?

The reality is, people will naturally pick out the prettier

ones first and you'll be left with a tray full of those in the bottom.

But do you think that supermarkets would never talk to each other

and say, "Look, there's a lot of food going to waste

"because we all have these very rigorous cosmetic standards, but if

"we all decided to relax them a bit, we could stop wasting a lot of food?"

Is that the kind of conversation you could imagine

-happening in the world of retailers?

-No!

-You just can't see that happening?

-Retailers work very...

-They're very, very competitive against each other.

-And secretive?

Yeah. Quite rightly so. They're big, big, powerful businesses

and they want to attract the consumers through their door.

Consumers will tell them that they don't really like that

and they only really like that, you know. It's fact.

You must not blame the retailers. It's customer-driven, this.

When you get to the last ten carrots in the tray,

it'll be 100% of these defects.

Well, maybe I'm peculiar,

but I actually find it quite reassuring to have a slightly

curved carrot cos it just reminds me that this

is a natural product and it grows in the earth.

Guy shares the supermarkets' view that shoppers are reluctant to

buy less-than-perfect carrots.

But how can we buy them if they don't put them on the shelves?

And while Guy's huge farming operation,

with its diverse products,

can clearly withstand the cost of cosmetic standards,

being forced to throw their crops away is driving smaller

farmers to the brink of despair.

I've been filming with the Hammond family in Norfolk,

who've been supplying parsnips to Morrisons since the 1980s.

I'm heading back to the Hammonds at Tattersett Farm

and today is a really tough day for them.

After 30 years, they're lifting their last crop ever.

They've had enough.

They've had no help from Morrisons and they just don't think

they can make it work any more, and so they're getting out,

which is just so sad.

30 years in farming comes to an end today.

Kevin and Debs and their two sons, Olly and SJ,

are packing their last ever harvest.

-Hello, Debs.

-Hello, Hugh.

-How are you doing?

-Very well, thank you, very well. You?

-I'm all right.

-Hello. Nice to see you again.

-Hi, Kev. All right, Olly? SJ?

How does it feel to be bagging up your last ever crop of parsnips?

-It's a difficult day.

-Yeah.

After 30-odd years supplying the supermarkets, and as this

third generation working in the job, it's now coming to an end today.

Have you told Morrisons that you're no longer in the business

-of growing parsnips?

-Yes, we have, yeah.

We've sent emails to people I've dealt with at Morrisons for

over 20 years and we've never heard anything from them since that day.

Did you feel you had any alternative

at all, other than closing the business?

No. No, I don't.

It's all driven by supermarkets.

We was going to lose a lot of money if we continued growing,

there's no question about that.

Why would I want to leave my boys in debt, you know?

If something happened to me and Deb...

Debs, what's today like for you?

Tough.

I don't know what to say, Debs, but...

I don't know what to say, Hugh, really, but...

you know, other than we've shown

so much commitment over the years

and been loyal, hardworking,

honest...and actually they don't give a damn.

You know, it's a tough day.

When I contacted Morrisons after my first visit,

they seemed very upbeat about the possibility of a filmed

interview at the farm to talk about waste caused by

cosmetic standards,

but Kev was getting a very different message from them.

Their head guys said to you that they would like to do something

but the conversation I had was, "Kevin, you need to bury it."

Bury what?

"Bury the TV interview, the camera work, the whole show,

"because we're not coming.

-"We've said we were but we're not coming."

-Yeah.

-I need to be really clear about this because they've got big fat lawyers.

-Oh, yes.

So is that the phrase they actually used?

The actual phrase. "Can you bury this for us? We want it buried."

-Why do you think...?

-Because they're not in touch any more.

They're not in touch. They say on their website that they work

so closely with their suppliers, etc, etc, but they don't.

The buyer who buys from us didn't even know where we were on the map.

Didn't even know where Norfolk was,

didn't even know where East Anglia was.

Morrisons deny they put pressure on the Hammonds and say they

offered to help but, according to Kevin, their interest came far too late.

And they're not the only ones having trouble with supermarkets.

Right now, nearly half of British farms are losing money.

Seems to me it needs a big change of attitude from the supermarkets.

But the British public have to do their bit too, don't they?

They have two step up and say, "We get it.

"We get there's a problem and we understand that this is

"perfectly good produce. And if it's got a little spot over here

"or a slight bruise over there, that's all right with us.

"Bring it on, we'll eat it, we'll use it, it's good stuff'."

These parsnips cost as much to grow as one that's perfectly good.

Why do we just throw it away? It's madness.

Everybody's got to get back to basics.

We're not going to continue doing this

and be part of the destruction of English farming.

I'm sorry, Kev, and I hope we can start something with

the British public that will make a difference...

Yes, get behind us.

-..for you and for what you've done for the last 30 years.

-Yeah.

Thank you so much for letting us in.

It's too late for Tattersett Farm,

but maybe it's not too late to demand that all our supermarkets

treat their producers fairly, so they have a viable future.

It's all I've ever done.

It's all I ever wanted to do when I left school.

I haven't done nothing wrong.

There's something about the culture of the supermarkets

and the way they do business with their suppliers

that seems to me fundamentally wrong.

I mean, in the end, who do we need more,

the people who grow our food or the people who sell it to us?

Who matters the most, actually?

I think it's the people who grow us our food and I think we should stick up for them,

and if that means going and standing up to the people who sell it

to us, and challenging the way they do it, well, I'm ready for that now.

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

And it looks like I will get a chance to put my case to Morrisons

because they have, finally, agreed to meet.

Not only that, they want to run a trial

selling cosmetically impaired produce in one of their stores.

Their PR chief, Julian Bailey, explains how it's going to work.

The reason we've chosen courgettes is because they're in season now.

What we really want to do is to actually test

whether, given the choice, customers will actually pick up

the ones that are, if you like,

the prettier courgettes or the ones that are more oddly shaped.

What we probably suspect is customers will actually

reach out more naturally for the prettier-looking vegetable,

but we don't know that, and I think that we're prepared to

test it, and see whether, actually, customers really mind that much.

It looks like a modest sort of trial to me, but it's a start,

and it means I will get a chance to meet with Julian

in a few weeks to discuss cosmetic guidelines

and put the case for struggling farmers. When I do, I want to

be armed with all the evidence I can muster to make the case for change.

So I've been talking to Tristram Stuart, who's been investigating

the hidden world of supermarket waste for over six years.

Every farmer we speak to is

resentful of the waste that they experience.

They grow the food throughout the year and then they see it

rot in their fields. But they can't do anything about it because,

if they complain against the supermarkets,

they risk losing their business.

A supermarket can easily just say,

"Right, fine, we'll go to another farmer."

What has to change now?

Cosmetic standards is one, and it's massive.

The other is last-minute order cancellations.

Farmers routinely tell us that, right at the last minute,

they get an email or a call saying, "We don't want it after all."

The entire cost of that waste lands on the farmer.

Olly and Debs at Tattersett Farm, who are growing the parsnips,

have also had a problem with order cancellations.

When they said that, I said,

"Well, I assume you at least get paid for that." No.

The point is, for a supermarket to routinely cancel orders

at the last minute is a breach of the law.

The problem is getting proof that the supermarket caused those

order cancellations, because most farmers are far too

scared of the supermarkets to speak out.

One of the objectives of my organisation is to find that

smoking gun and getting a good whistle-blower to really blow

the lid on supermarket practices is exactly what we need.

Although cancelling orders is not a criminal offence,

supermarkets can be fined millions under civil law

if they behave unfairly to their suppliers.

But, so far, no supermarkets have been penalised.

One of the problems seems to be that farmers just won't come forward.

While they still have a contract with the supermarket,

they don't want to stand up

and challenge that supermarket about the way they're treating them.

Well, the Hammonds at Tattersett Farm, after 30 years of business

with Morrisons, are no longer in business.

They've got nothing left to lose.

If Kevin and Debs have evidence that Morrisons changed their orders

unfairly at short notice, that could be the catalyst that

transforms how supermarkets do business with their suppliers.

This would be like the original order.

-6.25.

-6.25pm.

-440 trays, yep.

-That's a lot of parsnips.

Yep, and then the following morning, at 7.40...

-You've already lifted the crop.

-Yeah.

-440 goes down to 300.

-Yeah.

-That's over 1,000 kilos.

-Yes. They have to then be tipped out.

-They go on that big pile I saw when I first came in.

-I'm afraid so, yes.

Every one of these is an example of a cancelled order.

There's over 100 to our detriment.

These amended orders represent not only tonnes of parsnips

wasted on the farm,

but thousands of pounds worth of lost income for the Hammonds.

It's like a red rag to a bull. I mean, you know,

I found myself getting worked up throughout the morning,

and I was glad we came away and you've come down here

because I don't think I could face going to the office any more.

But I think the consumer needs to know what's happening to

family businesses supplying any of the supermarkets.

Well, I think the public would like to know

and I think Morrisons have certainly got a case to answer.

'It's just over a week till my showdown with Morrisons

'and I'm hoping the Hammonds' story will show all the supermarkets

'the human cost of wasting food on British farms.'

Dealing with the big corporations has been frustrating.

But when I speak to people on Gardner Road in Prestwich

about food waste, they get it straight away.

Even the kids understand we shouldn't be chucking good food in the bin.

Ah, the gang is here. What have you got?

More bananas, strawberries, brilliant. Grapes.

We're going to take the fruit that your mums and dads

were about to throw away, and the yoghurts that are nearly out of date,

and we're going to make them into yummy lollies. Who's up for that?

Well, it's very polite of you to put your hands up,

but you are allowed to talk in this kitchen. Who's up for that?

-ALL:

-Me!

Fantastic. OK, let's get going.

We are going to do a juicy lolly, so like a really fruity one,

and then we're going to make some creamy lollies.

-Who wants to tuck into these grapes?

-Yeah.

And I can see there are quite a lot of brown ones.

-Are you happy you've got all the good ones?

-Yeah.

Let's put these raspberries and blueberries in.

They're a bit squishy. I want all the juice coming out.

Tired old fruit that's a little bruised or wrinkled is

perfect for making lollies.

Urgh, it's horrible.

It's going to be delicious, though. That is some lovely juice.

Pour those yoghurts in. Good job, guys, good job.

Into the freezer with the lollies.

Who's sticking around for the clearing up?

-ALL:

-Not me, bye!

Even the local sceptics

have been persuaded to bin their rubbish habits.

Plastic bottles, food, tin cans, lots of paper, tea bags.

They're not lonely, they're all together.

It's easy, one bag, in the bin, done.

And Kelly's been my shining example.

But just to be sure she's mended her ways,

I've installed a hidden camera at the cafe where she works.

What brings you to these neck of the woods?

I'd like a quick word. May I borrow Kelly for a second, Carol?

-Of course you can.

-Who's that?

-That's me.

-You are at least working.

-Dancing.

-Sorry!

I'm sure you are. Can't believe you filmed me secretly.

This is good though... Oh.

-Paper, did you see it?

-I did.

-Watch, watch, watch.

-Food in the food, paper in the paper.

-Wait, wait for it.

-How do you know what's coming up? You're that confident.

-I've done it.

-You're that confident you've been good?

-Yep.

Drinks tin, emptying it out. Where's it going to go?

Oh!

-Nearly.

-But I didn't.

-I'm impressed with myself.

-I'm incredibly impressed.

I need a bigger food bin now.

I think you do, since all the food is actually going in it.

-Yeah, yeah.

-But how hard has it been, really?

It's not. It's not that hard, to be fair.

It doesn't even make a difference to your day at all. Done it.

I'm confident that the Gardner Road gang are well on the way to

transforming how they deal with their waste.

And the supermarkets

seem to be claiming they've got their waste sorted too,

yet I've been finding perfectly good food in their bins

and seeing tonnes of their vegetables getting

wasted on our farms.

So how can they be claiming one thing on their websites,

when clearly something else is happening in the real world?

Part of the answer is a process called anaerobic digestion,

happening at plants like this one outside Birmingham.

It's one of over 140 similar sites now operating across the country.

The lorry that came in is going to dump into this pit here?

Yeah, the door will open, he will back up

and he will offload straight into the bin.

And the waste that is already in here,

that was delivered earlier today?

-Yeah, it has been arriving since 7am.

-Here comes the next lot.

That looks like a lot of bread and buns.

Yeah, this is one of our typical bakery loads.

And so that's probably a week's worth of bakery waste?

-Probably about a day's worth.

-Blimey.

AD is a clever process that converts food into gasses that can

then be burnt to make electricity.

That's a lot of bread.

And because it's recovering energy, it's the right thing to do

with wasted food that really can't be eaten.

This is a much bigger truck than the last one, Chris.

Yeah, this is one of our bulk deliveries.

And where has this come from?

This has come from a national retailer from a distribution centre.

-Category three material - not for human consumption.

-That's right.

-So when you say a retailer, this is a supermarket.

-Correct, yeah.

'I was only allowed to film here on condition that I didn't say

'which companies are using this facility.

'And that seems a bit ironic,

'when most supermarkets are actually boasting on their websites

'about using AD. So, what are they trying to hide here?'

Is all the food unfit for human consumption?

Not all the food is, no.

So some of the food that's coming here might just be surplus stock?

-Or out of date.

-Or out of date.

'So at least some of the surplus food

'coming here is fit for human consumption

'and I challenge all the supermarkets to tell us why that's happening.

'Surely it's madness to feed power stations with food

'that could still be used to feed people?

'Fortunately, there are organisations

'dedicated to intercepting in-date surplus stock

'that would otherwise end up in AD.

'Lindsay Boswell is the CEO of a charity called FareShare.'

I'm looking at boxes of cereal, fizzy drinks, jars of jam,

all sorts of everyday items, but why have they ended up with you?

Why aren't they in the supermarket?

So it will be a mix of reasons.

The biggest crime in the food industry

is to not be able to meet demand

and that starts when you and I walk into a supermarket.

If the shelf is bare, we'll go to their rival.

You're talking about the entire industry

really being one of deliberate over-supply

because under-supply is a crime that they're not prepared to consider.

'As long as overproduction

'is the cornerstone of the supermarket business model,

'there will always be perfectly good food going spare,

'sometimes for the most ridiculous reasons.'

This must have a very, very long shelf life.

Why would they have any problem selling this?

Let's get one out. Let's have a look.

Right, do you recognise that branding?

Something about it looks a bit odd. It doesn't look quite right.

What we've been told is, this is the wrong shade of grey,

so whether the machinery is getting to the end of its print run

or somebody's just made a miscalculation.

That's really bizarre.

This is one of our big chillers, Hugh,

and there's some folk in here who are picking and sorting food.

Hi, there. How long have you been in here?

I've been here for about six months now, but...

-Not in the fridge?!

-No, not in the fridge.

We've only just come in to start on these orders.

You're looking chilly already.

So this is a lot of the meat-type products.

They've got a lot of hamburgers here, Hugh.

Amazing-looking steaks from Tesco's here, lamb.

-Yeah. They do look good.

-Some joints of beef.

Some good-quality meat here.

'It's brilliant that so much food is being rescued by FareShare,

'but it's only a tiny fraction of our national surplus -

'the rest is being secretly destroyed.'

Do you have any idea how much of the waste problem you're solving

by distributing that food?

Yeah, and I'm really pleased you asked.

This is the shocking bit.

Although we're providing 150,000 meals a week,

although we saved nearly 2,000 charities £20 million,

that is only 2% of the surplus, in date, fit for selling,

fit for retail, fit for consuming food in the UK.

And our real message to the food industry is,

we want to go from 2% to 25%.

So, what do you need to happen to get to your 25%??

We know the volunteers are there, cos people hate waste.

We've got the infrastructure.

What we really need is more food to be able to supply to more charities.

'To see the difference that projects like this are making,

'I'm hitching a ride on one of their delivery vans.'

There's a lot of people that are struggling out there, you know,

and they rely on this food and they rely on the likes of FareShare.

We just need it to go bigger and bigger now.

And what has to happen to make that?

The supermarkets have got to get more food into us.

Let us get it out to the community groups

and they love it when we deliver it to them.

"Oh, what have we got today, son?

"What have we got for tomorrow's dinner? What's for pudding?"

They really love it.

This is the daily delivery to The Unity,

an after-school club in Toxteth, Liverpool,

where, every evening, 40 or so local kids come by

to have a free tea cooked by Craig.

A lot of the kids come in straight from school,

so they wouldn't have ate from 12 in the afternoon

and they might not be going home to a home cooked hot meal.

So, for quite a few of them,

this is going to be the most nutritious meal they get?

This is going to be the biggest meal they have,

so I'm making sure they have something wholesome.

So you've got the stick blender out. Why is that?

We're going to try and fool the kids into thinking

there's not as much vegetables in as there actually is.

Ah, so you blitz it and they can't see the veg,

and they think it's just a lovely sauce?

Hey, hungry people!

'If FareShare could get their hands

'on just a quarter of all the surplus food in this country,

'they could provide over a million free meals every day.'

Did you like the pasta, did you?

You're having a pasta and sauce sandwich. How's that?

It's like a party in my mouth.

Like a party in your mouth? Brilliant!

-So, you all like Craig's food?

-Yeah!

Very gratifying. It's all gone.

It's been really good to see a positive side

to the waste story today.

Seeing FareShare actually reducing the amount of food

that's going to waste by doing something really useful with it,

and then coming here at the end of the day and seeing a bunch of kids

getting a fantastic meal from food that would otherwise be thrown away,

well, it makes you realise that all the retailers

and all their suppliers really have to commit

to an incredibly important principle,

which is that food that CAN be eaten by human beings

SHOULD be eaten by human beings.

Here goes! "Dear Tesco, I am issuing a challenge

"to all our major food retailers in the way they deal with their waste.

"Dear M&S, will you commit to only sending food to AD

"that is not for human consumption?

"Dear Morrisons...

"Dear Waitrose... "Dear Sainsbury's...

"If a product has your name on it,

"then I am holding you responsible for its final destination."

'There's no reason why all our supermarkets

'couldn't rapidly double the amount they are giving away

'and I'm going to be on their case to see which of them delivers.'

Back in Prestwich, it's bin day and not just any bin day.

It's the one that tells me whether these lovely people

have really started a rubbish revolution

over the last nine weeks.

And there's one bin I'm dying to check up on personally.

So I'm just round the back of Michelle's house where,

a few weeks ago, I cleaned out the most disgusting bin

I've ever seen in my life.

'The deal was that, because I helped her clean that bin out,

'she was going to be really good

'about organising her rubbish and doing her recycling.'

Hi, Michelle, any chance of a quick word?

Do you want to come in or...?

I'd love to come in in a minute,

but what I'm really interested in is how you're getting on with your bins.

Have a look.

Oh, come on, that's too good to be true.

That's the cleanest recycling I've ever seen.

It's brilliant, ain't it?

-Have you found it hard?

-No, not at all.

So how nice is it not to have that really filthy, stinky,

-cat litter, takeaway bin outside?

-Brilliant.

Best recycling I've seen for years.

-Well done.

-Thank you.

-Nice to see you.

-You too.

-Take care.

-See you later.

-I promise not to snoop any more.

-Yeah, please don't!

'Michelle has given me hope that the whole Gardner Road gang

'has indeed been waging a war on waste.

'All will be revealed at the end-of-the-street party

'I'm throwing this afternoon.

'I'm catering for a couple of hundred

'and what they don't know is that all this food

'would otherwise have been wasted.

'Sam and Catie spent last night skip diving their way

'from Bristol to Prestwich...and this is their haul.'

Sorry about the queue,

but the food is delicious when you get there.

'Amelia is here and stripes are still in - just -

'and Kelly has volunteered to run the cake stall.'

How is this chocolate and banana cake going down?

Really, really well.

-Excellent. Have you tried a bit?

-Yeah.

Do you know where the Ferrero Rochers and bananas came from?

The Ferrero Rochers came from a bin outside the Tesco.

Are you being serious?

And the bananas came from a bin outside Waitrose.

-Was it out of date?

-The Ferrero Rochers

-were a couple of weeks out of date.

-You've set me up again!

-It's only chocolate.

-Well, it tastes extremely nice. It does.

-Hey, how's it going?

-Really good.

-You having fun?

-Lots of fun.

'Our Wastenot lollies are going down well

'and the party is in full swing,

'complete with recycled bunting and decorations,

'and a very active clothes exchange stall, which is great to see!

'But what everyone, including me, wants to know is,

'have the residents of Gardner Road

'managed to radically improve their recycling?

'Denise and her team at the local refuse centre

'have just finished sorting through their bins.'

-Hello again, ladies and gentlemen!

-Hello!

Two months ago, with the local waste collectors,

I collected many of your bins.

Denise took a good look at your rubbish then and made an assessment

of just how much of the wrong stuff was ending up in your waste bin.

We made another collection

and she's come here with some information that even I do not know,

so I would like to ask Denise up on the stage to tell us

a little bit about what she has found out.

I have to ask you, first of all, did you see a difference?

-Yes.

-CHEERING

That sounds like good news.

There were hardly any clothes, very, very little paper.

It was amazing. I have to say I am incredibly impressed.

Well done, Prestwich.

And, in just two months, the Gardner Road neighbourhood

have nearly doubled the amount of glass, tins

and plastic they're recycling too.

Is that right? 40%-70%?

I'd like to think that it would carry on

-being at that level.

-Yeah, it will do.

That puts them in the top 1% of all recyclers in Europe.

It's something which has kind of spurred us on, if you like,

to have less waste.

Are you going to stick with it?

-ALL:

-Yes!

Thank you, Prestwich!

'And if they continue to reduce the amount of food they're binning,

'they'll be saving hundreds of pounds a year.'

Hopefully I will have saved a little bit with not wasting as much.

-But I still think you go shopping too much though.

-Oh, shut up!

Here in Prestwich, we've mobilised a small community

to really care about waste

and it's not the easiest subject in the world to care about.

But now, to this group of people,

it really matters and, of course, it needs to matter to everybody,

right throughout the UK. So now it's time to ramp it up,

take it up to another level.

'So I'm launching the Wastenot website nationwide.

'It's full of money-saving and waste-saving tips and recipes.

'I'm hoping our war on waste will spread all over Britain

'because, if we all make small changes, big things will happen.

'But if we're really going to reduce food waste in the UK,

'our supermarkets have got to get on board.

'And I'm finally getting my chance

'to talk to one of the biggest - Morrisons.

'Surely they'll grab this opportunity to boldly lead the way to change

'by relaxing their cosmetic guidelines?

'And, of course, I'll be challenging them

'on all those amended orders they kept pushing on the Hammonds.'

It's been a long time coming, this interview,

more than six months, and so I'm quite fired up,

but, at the same time, I'm a bit conflicted,

because although I'm really angry about the Hammonds

and what has happened to their farm, this is also a great opportunity.

I mean, Morrisons have done a trial,

which we are going to talk about today,

of cosmetically graded-out vegetables.

Maybe they could be the first supermarket

to really do things differently,

so I don't want to just lose my rag.

I'm feeling a bit Jekyll and Hyde

and I'm not sure which way it is going to go.

'Head of communications Julian Bailey

'and head of corporate responsibility Steve Butts have assured me

'that they'll consider expanding the veg trial to other stores

'if it's proved popular with their customers.'

So we've been selling class one courgettes

-alongside class two courgettes.

-Yes.

Pound for pound, they're the same price

and what we found was that the class one courgette

sold about twice as quickly as the class two courgettes.

-At the same price.

-At the same price.

-Not a massive surprise there, is it?

Cos nobody's saying there's zero difference between the two products.

But you know what I'm getting straight away?

Feel that soft end. That's squidgy.

I would bet all my horticultural money

that these courgettes are actually older.

They're not being picked at the same time,

whereas that is rock hard by comparison.

I can be absolutely clear that we're taking these at the same time

and they're coming through our supply chain in the same way.

It didn't quite look like it was a level playing field.

The thing is, customers look at a product

that is scarred or oddly shaped

and might go, "Actually, I don't want to buy that product."

The worst thing would be to move the problem

that you're saying is on the farm into our supermarkets.

Well, it wouldn't be worse for the farmer

because they'd get paid for their produce.

Lots of people are saying that's exactly what you should be doing.

You should be taking responsibility for it

and make it your problem because you're a supermarket.

You're very good at selling stuff.

If it was your problem, I'm sure you'd solve it.

'What a shame that Morrisons won't look seriously

'at relaxing the cosmetic standards across all their produce.

'But surely they can't duck the issue

'of their repeated overnight order changes at Tattersett Farm?'

6.14pm - 385 packs.

The next morning - 285.

It's gone down by 100 packs just because you've changed your mind

about how much you think you can sell.

And you've changed your mind overnight, while they were asleep

or while they were in the field pulling up the crop.

Surely that's not acceptable? Surely that has to change?

In terms of the specifics of the examples that you've got,

I don't know the reasons why.

What I do know is that suppliers like that, family businesses,

work directly with Morrisons and have done for a long, long time.

They can sell their produce anywhere they like.

Why are they still working with us?

If our buying practices are so bad, why are they still selling to us?

I would say that it's because, generally speaking,

there is a pretty good give and take with suppliers all the time.

What I feel like I'm hearing

is a very well-rehearsed explanation of the way that you do business.

What I am not really hearing is any sense of alarm or anxiety

about the sheer amount of food that is being wasted.

I think it's time to acknowledge that you are causing the problem.

There are lots of people in the supply chain,

whether it's a farmer or a middleman or a retailer,

so the picture you are painting...

It sounds like you are going to share exciting news with me,

some initiative that you've got.

No, no. Ultimately, Hugh, at the end of the day,

if our customers want to buy it

and we can get the product, then we can sell it.

Would you like to see them say that?

Would that give you the confidence to do bold things about waste,

if your customers were asking you to do it?

I don't want to seem like I'm skirting around the issue.

It feels a bit like it.

It's very easy, but there are lots of good examples...

If you get a very clear message from your customers

that they are willing to meet you halfway,

they are ready to be adaptable on the subject of cosmetic standards...

We are listening to our customers, but the point...

-Will you respond to that very boldly?

-Yes.

-Yes.

Yes, the point is, Hugh...

Fantastic, Steve!

Julian, you'll be behind that, won't you?

Of course, we listen to our customers.

Morrisons customers, I really need you to step up at this point

because if you don't tell these guys to do it, they're not going to do it.

So, come on! Tell them you don't mind that much about cosmetic standards -

that you'd like to see farmers and suppliers

being treated really fairly.

'No matter how big the organisation, the customer is king.

'That's you, and if you don't believe you have the power

'to change billion-pound corporations,

'then just look at what's happened

'since we started challenging them to waste less.

'Waitrose are talking to skip divers Sam and Catie

'about ways to distribute more of their surplus food -

'this time, legally.

'Asda, Tesco, Coop and Sainsbury's have all committed

'to send more food to FareShare and could be on track

'to meet my challenge of doubling their contribution.

'And just hours before our first show went on air,

'Morrisons announced they would send all their surplus food

'for redistribution through charities.

'But there's still one massive issue

'the supermarkets are just not stepping up to,

'so let's see if we can do something together

'to persuade them to see sense about those crazy cosmetic standards.'

"I agree that wasting millions of tonnes of food per year is immoral

-"and I want my supermarket to put a stop to this."

-Without a doubt.

We want to make sure that gets eaten, not wasted.

I think that's a good idea.

'There's a simple pledge on the Wastenot website

'demanding that supermarkets stop wasting good food.'

Look at that pile of carrots. They're all rejects.

Yeah, I don't like waste.

'The more of us that sign it, the louder our voice.'

So if you tell me where you shop... Waitrose, Sainsbury's and M&S.

You're posh, aren't you?

OK, good, you're addressing it all.

'And I'll be back in the spring

'to let you know if our supermarkets really are listening.'

-Your pledge will make a difference.

-I hope so.

-Together, we can do this.

-We will!

You know what? Nobody's said no yet. It might be just because I'm on fire,

or it might be because it's a really good idea.

'Until then, let's show the supermarkets WE mean business

'in our war on waste.'