Episode 9 Rip Off Britain: Food

There's a lot we don't know about the food on our plates -

and the shops and the labels don't always tell you the whole story.

The packaging, I think, is very misleading and it can give people

the impression they're getting more than they're actually getting.

Whether you're staying in or going out, you've told us you can

feel ripped off by the promises made from what you eat

and what you pay for it.

I always say when I get to the till and they tell me...

I say, "Never. It can't... How much?"

From claims that don't stack up to the secrets behind the packaging,

we uncover the truth about Britain's food

so you can be sure you're getting what you expect at the right price.

Your food. Your money. This is Rip Off Britain.

Hello and welcome to Rip Off Britain,

where, as ever, we've been very busy fighting your corner,

and investigating whether we're getting value for money.

That's the important bit.

But it seems there's one area where we're not always helping

ourselves or, indeed, our finances.

Now, according to the latest figures, between us,

every year we throw away perfectly good food worth a total of -

wait for this - £12.5 billion. It's absolutely obscene.

Well, put it another way - four million tonnes of the stuff

is going straight in the bin.

And these days when budgets are tight,

and food costs are rising, it's money we can't afford to lose.

Totally. So today, we'll be looking at some of the ways that we

and, crucially, the industry itself,

can reduce all that waste and, hopefully, our bills.

And then along the way, we'll be revealing some surprising

things about some of the foods we most commonly throw away.

Coming up, we throw stacks of it away unopened

but there's another danger lurking inside our salad bags.

I just was in agony and it was from a bag of salad.

I was shocked because you don't think it would come from that.

And we join a mission to salvage some of the wasted vegetables

that are considered too ugly for the supermarket shelves.

I just find it incredible that all these pumpkins are going to waste.

If you think about the amount of people that they can feed,

it's ridiculous.

Now, it's estimated that families waste on average £700 a year

on food that's thrown in the bin and one of the main reasons

we do it is because of the date on the packaging.

Once that's passed, we think it's no good to eat, perhaps even risky.

So guess what? It goes in the bin.

But chances are most of what we're chucking away is absolutely fine -

like this cake, for example.

And it might be because of confusion between best-before, display-until

and use-by dates that food which looks and smells OK is being wasted.

So which of those labels should we be taking notice of

and which can we ignore?

Now, there can't be many of us who haven't

at some point found ourselves sniffing food in the fridge

that's just gone out of date, wondering if it's still safe to eat.

Whether it's cheese with a hint of mould,

milk that might just make your stomach turn sour,

or meat that's taken on a funny colour,

we've probably all wondered whether to tuck in or chuck it in the bin.

Of course, you should always be careful about safety,

particularly if you're elderly, pregnant or, indeed, in ill health.

But do we really have to throw away every single bit of food

that simply says on the packaging it's past its best?

Before the 1950s, dates on our food just didn't exist.

We would rely on our sense of smell to work out whether we should

eat something or not and whether it could harm us by doing so.

It was Marks & Spencer who first came up with

the best-before date.

At the beginning, it was just for use in its storerooms.

But then in 1996, the EU food labelling directive

came into place, making it law that perishable foods,

such as dairy products, fish and meat,

have to be marked with a "use by" date,

giving a clear timescale for how long food

remains safe for consumption.

But it's not only the "use by" date that we see stamped on our food.

There's also the "display until", never mind the "best before."

Our food packaging is absolutely full of all sorts of warnings and dates -

so is there any wonder we end up totally bewildered

about what food is safe or not safe to eat?

And maybe on some occasions,

we end up wasting money by chucking good food in the bin.

'Dr Lisa Ackerley is a food microbiologist.

'I've come to meet her in the hope she'll unpick some of the confusion

'and help us avoid wasting so much perfectly good food and money.'

I find it very confusing

and I think a lot of people would be with me on this.

Sell by, best before, eat by, use by - it is very confusing,

so what's the general rule of thumb?

So, best before, you can eat beyond the date

and it wouldn't do you any harm.

You use your eyes and your senses to see whether or not you want to eat it.

With the use-by date, that tends to be for the more perishable foods,

which could potentially become a safety risk.

So, with use by,

is it illegal for the shop to have on the shelf

anything that says "use by"?

If it is beyond the use-by date,

then it is illegal for the shops to sell it

and also for caterers to sell foods beyond the use-by date, as well.

But do we really need to be so hung up about the dates on the packaging?

Adrian Williamson wrote to us in utter frustration

about how much food he ends up binning because it's gone beyond the recommendation.

I think it's the bonus and piggy-back offers

where you might get two of these meals at a price.

You might stock up with four of those but in fact, if you do so,

you might waste one in the process.

I think people are very confused

and there is no guidance on the pack to explain to customers how long

a product might last beyond a particular expression on the pack.

So Lisa has agreed to do a risk assessment

of typical food items you might have in your fridge,

to see what's safe to eat and what needs chucking.

I think actually from the bottom shelf where it should be -

because meat should be on the bottom shelf -

take the chicken. Now, if you look at this,

in fact, I am a week within the date but it just looks manky.

And quite frankly, I wouldn't want to eat that

even though it's within the use by date.

-Smells awful, doesn't it?

-It does. Will we take the wrapper off?

With chicken, obviously,

you're going to cook it thoroughly all the way through.

So if there were dangerous bacteria on there,

then they would be destroyed by the cooking process.

-Even if the chicken doesn't smell that good?

-Yeah.

The thing is, it wouldn't taste very nice either.

So what's happened here? The original seal has broken

and had a piece of chicken out of it.

-It is disgusting.

-That is absolutely foul.

You would not want to touch that at all.

Now, I don't think that would necessarily make you ill

but it would be absolutely disgusting to eat.

Now, I suspect what's happened to this is that it's actually

suffered from poor temperature control

or lack of temperature control, so probably what's happened is

the pack's been opened - that immediately changes things anyway.

This is where a bit of sensibility comes in

because, as I say, this is a week within the use-by date.

That is awful.

Something has happened to that chicken in terms of temperature -

it has been kept too warm,

and so the bacteria have started to grow.

And this is a really important point because the use-by date is given

to us on the basis that we are going to look after the food.

So if we don't keep it as recommended -

in other words, in the fridge - then bacteria can start to

grow quicker and that means the food will actually go off quicker.

So it seems that unless you store your food correctly,

including following instructions

about how many days you can use it for once it's been opened,

the sell-by dates on the packet can mean nothing.

Let's see what we have. I might actually take eggs next.

Those, again, part of a stable diet.

Now, I'll be honest with you.

Sometimes I do use eggs beyond the use-by date.

So...I haven't got my glasses on. Have to get my glasses on and read the thing!

What does that say? Yeah, so this is about a week - over a week - out of date.

I think I would probably use those.

The latest advice is that you can use the eggs after

the best-before date - these have best before on them -

but only if you cook them thoroughly.

-So, not a fried egg, for example...

-Not a runny egg.

..cos that's too runny.

With these eggs though, these have got a lion on them, you can see.

That gives us a guarantee

that they've come from a salmonella-vaccinated flock.

It doesn't mean that they're guaranteed to be salmonella-free,

so there may be some risk, but this means it is much better.

There's some tests you can do to see if the eggs are still all right.

One with water. So, what's the theory, then?

Well, the theory is if it's an old egg, it will float to the top.

-Dropped to the bottom. That's OK, isn't it?

-Yep.

It's a good test.

Official guidelines say it's OK to eat eggs a day or two after

the best-before date - provided they're thoroughly cooked.

But what if something really pongs?

Is that always a sign that you shouldn't eat it?

This one is only just - it's only about a day out of time.

So, let's open it up and see how we're going.

Now, that looks pretty all right to me.

If it's pasteurised cheese, then I wouldn't be too concerned

that it's gone a little bit over the date.

It looks fine.

If it was unpasteurised cheese, then there is a potential there

for certain bacteria to be there that you wouldn't want to eat.

The longer you keep them in the fridge,

the longer the chance is for them to build up.

When we asked shoppers how much food they threw away,

it was reassuring to hear that with some foods at least,

we're not all slaves to the sell-by date.

If I have to, I tend to go by my nose and my eyes

more than the label on the bottle.

If it's a day or so over its sell-by date, I will.

If my nose and my eyes tell me it's OK, I will eat it.

We're not so strict about the date.

Certainly with meat, cos I think it's better if it's matured.

'But our sense of smell may not uncover every harmful bacteria

'that's lurking.'

Now, what other goodies do I have in here?

On the top shelf, we have some ham.

Now, again, this is a staple in a lot of people's fridge.

Absolutely, yeah. This a ready-to-eat food.

And it's got a use-by date that has expired, well, over a week ago.

So there's a potential danger with this,

because there may be bacteria on there.

Also, because it's been opened, the pack is no longer intact,

so somebody has been going in there and getting slices out.

Smells OK, actually.

I'll tell you something that people may not be aware of,

and that is that we have on our skin bacteria called staflogofasourus

and about a third of the population carry that.

It's fine on our skin normally but when it gets onto something

like ham, it can actually grow. And when it grows, it produces toxins.

And if you eat those toxins,

then you can be violently sick within hours of eating it.

So, by taking a few slices out already,

that could have gone onto the ham.

Yes, hands... Because we know that this pack's been opened, hands could have contaminated that.

So, would you eat this?

No. Absolutely not, no, and I wouldn't give it to anybody.

-Not even the dog?

-No, no.

So what does all of this mean for what we should

and shouldn't be putting straight in the bin once that date is up?

I think, though, there is a culture

of being lured in by all the special offers.

And I do this myself - I tend to still buy for five

forgetting that there's two people living there.

-Because chances are we're not going to eat all that.

-No.

Make your freezer your best friend. Just get the stuff cheaper,

but put half of it in the freezer and then use it at another date.

And I absolutely hate wastage of food.

And I try not to buy too much food and my children moan,

cos they always say the fridge is empty.

I'd rather have an empty fridge, knowing that I'm not wasting food,

and use something from the freezer when we're hungry

and make something up from what we've already got.

Of course, we're not all as good at watching our food waste as Lisa

and the average household in the UK chucks away

£60 worth of food and drink every month.

But if these shoppers are anything to go by,

perhaps we are getting a bit more savvy

and learning not to throw away money in the bin

by getting rid of food that may still be very useable and safe.

I don't think I throw anything away

because I'm always hungry so I'm always eating.

I usually go by the sell-by date.

But if it's something like cheese or certain foods,

you know they'll last a bit longer anyway.

So if they've not been opened, I'll eat it.

The busier we are, the less time we have

to prepare our food from scratch

using lovely fresh ingredients like these.

And food manufacturers know there's money to be made

out of our need for culinary speed.

One of the time-saving products that has become hugely popular

in recent years is pre-bagged salad,

a supermarket staple many of us have grown to rely on.

In fact, two thirds of UK households are thought to buy it regularly

because it's handy and nutritious.

But next time you tear open that bag of leaves,

there are a few things you might want to think about

before you reach for the dressing.

In days of old, if you wanted a nice salad with your meal

there was only one way of doing it.

I'm just going to take a bit, or a couple them.

Don't mix more than three kinds.

You'd need to buy a lettuce, wash it, chop, tear

and then serve.

They even had to show you how to do it on TV!

Little bit of a tossing and turning

and we're off to the races.

Well, how things have changed.

These days, our salad comes packaged, washed and ready to eat

and what's not to love...

..about that?

I buy bagged salad cos it's easy.

It's quick just to open and put on your plate.

It's already pre-washed.

If you have to buy it all separately,

then it seems to cost more.

I'd rather buy fresh salad, which I should do, really.

But it's quick and easy, the packet one.

It's hard to remember the time before salad equalled bagged.

The first to appear was a humble packet of shredded iceberg

that was considered ever so sophisticated

when it landed on the shelves of Marks & Spencer in 1986.

Today, we've come a long way.

From Radicchio to Lollo Rosso,

whether you like your leaves crispy, sharp or sweet,

there's a bag for you.

As a nation, we have truly fallen in love

with ready-prepared salad.

But food journalist Joanna Blythman

is among those not so enamoured of these instant greens.

Well, before the sort of 1990s,

we really didn't eat that much salad in Britain.

Salad was a summer thing.

And the rest of the year,

we tended to cook vegetables and serve them hot.

But salads have really caught on.

And of course,

supermarkets have been very astute about buying into that

because it's a very profitable way for them to sell us salad leaves.

They can make far more money on bags of salads, mixed salads,

than they can on selling us a whole lettuce.

Last year, we munched our way through

more than 461 million bags and bowls of the stuff.

But when it comes to our love affair

with those bags of convenience,

have we fallen for a wrong 'un?

I think you'll often find when you get a bag of salad leaves,

you'll buy a bag thinking,

"That's good - that will do two meals."

You'll take it home, you'll use the first lot,

you'll put it in the fridge,

and then you'll come back to this and think,

"Gosh, these really are looking very clapped out."

I mean, they have just collapsed,

they look like thirsty house-plants that have been neglected.

It also leads to a large amount of waste.

I used to buy the bags but I've stopped buying the bags now

because I threw so much away.

So now we just buy a proper lettuce.

It doesn't last as long and it's quite expensive.

So I used to buy bagged salad

but I found that it went off very quickly,

much quicker than just buying an ordinary lettuce,

so I stopped buying it. And it's more expensive.

It is estimated that as much as 68% of all bagged salad goes to waste.

So serious is the problem that last autumn,

Britain's biggest supermarket chain, Tesco,

said it would be ending so-called BOGOF -

buy one get one free - promotions

on large bags of salad.

But while we might bin masses of it uneaten,

at least can take comfort in knowing

that all that bagged salad is good for us.

Although perhaps not quite as good as you might think.

You have to eat an awful lot of salad to get, sort of,

really significant nutrition,

or to come anywhere near to what you would get

if you served if you served, say, cooked broccoli.

In fact, for salad to count as one of your five a day,

you'll need to eat a cereal bowl full of leaves,

not just a few on the side.

What we are eating is doing us less good than we hope

and sometimes those little green leaves

can be harbouring a dirty little secret.

Watercress has been recalled by Sainsbury's due to an E. coli outbreak.

200,000 bags have been recalled,

following a Food Standards Agency alert.

Last year, Sainsbury's withdrew

all its bagged salad products containing watercress

because of a possible link to an outbreak of E. coli

which saw 19 people fall ill,

seven of whom ended up in hospital.

Public Health England have confirmed that bagged watercress

was the cause of the outbreak.

But Sainsbury's insist that the strain...

And that the withdrawal from the shelves was...

Professor Hugh Pennington

is one of the country's leading microbiologists

and food safety experts.

And he's adamant that the wash our salad gets

before it goes in the bag

isn't enough to kill all the bugs.

The washing is more of a... It's a sort of rinse, rather than a wash.

And the rinse will remove, say, 90% of the bugs that are there,

or maybe even 99% of the bugs.

But because you might have millions of bugs there -

not normally, but you could have -

99% of a million is still a lot.

Most of the time, most of the bugs on the salad are quite harmless.

But occasionally we get these outbreaks,

where these bugs that shouldn't be there have got there.

Becci Lloyd knows only too well

how nasty the consequences of unexpected bugs in bagged salad can be.

I was working in the bar.

I had lasagne for tea, lasagne and a bit of side salad.

I was fine after work. I think it was the next couple of days,

I just was in agony.

And then obviously I was on the toilet quite a lot.

And I went to the doctors

and they basically said to me, "You've got a gastro bug."

But it turned out to be far from an everyday tummy bug.

The symptoms persisted for over a fortnight.

I just thought, "What is this pain?"

It was like waves of pain.

Like, it would just be fine and then all of a sudden

it'd feel like my whole body was... I just couldn't move.

Like, it was just horrible.

And then I had to...

I genuinely thought it was my appendix.

I thought, "Is my appendix going to burst?

"What other pain is this, what is inside my stomach?"

After further tests,

Becci's doctor confirmed it was Cryptosporidium infection,

a nasty illness caused by a parasite.

Understandably, Becci wanted to know how she'd caught it.

Well, my friend had it at the same time.

She contacted me and told me

that she'd found out that it was from the bagged salad. And...

..I was actually shocked

cos obviously I think salad's, like, a really clean thing.

You just don't think that it'd come from that.

Becci was just one victim

in an outbreak that saw around 300 people fall ill

across England and Scotland in May 2012.

The Health Protection Agency said there was "strong evidence"

of a link to bagged salad that had been labelled "ready to eat."

And in fact, almost all of the bagged salad we buy

has these words clearly displayed.

It means the leaves have been washed.

But Professor Pennington says that's not enough

and that holding the lettuce under the kitchen tap

needs to make a comeback.

My personal preference would just be to give it that added rinse

under basic tap water.

Because although those products are inherently safe

you can't guarantee that 100%.

So if it's a good idea to wash bagged salad again,

should it really be labelled as ready to eat?

We asked the body that speaks for the bagged salad industry,

the British Leafy Salads Association, just that.

It told us that fresh-prepared salad leaves are...

Prepared salad bags are...

...and are...

They added that the advice from the Food Standards Agency

is that if a bag of salad has been labelled

as washed and ready to eat...

Of course, when something saves us time

and makes our lives easier,

it might be that no amount of criticism

can put us off using it.

So the best advice is to choose bags

with the longest use-by dates as possible

and eat them as soon as you can.

So if there is any bacteria lurking on the leaves,

there's less chance of it multiplying.

At the end of the day,

salads are obviously good for you from a nutritional point of view.

They're a safe food.

But if you really want to make it absolutely as safe as you can,

knowing that there's always going to be a very small risk,

go to a supplier you trust

and I like this idea of giving it a wash

before you put it on the plate.

Still to come on Rip Off Britain...

It's been out of favour for a while

but we'll reveal why frozen food

could be the answer to some of our food waste problems.

It's absolutely fresher. It hasn't degraded over time.

So you've got your nutrition element, the waste element,

the convenience element.

Now if, like me, you were brought up to finish what's on your plate

before you could leave the table,

you will be horrified by the amount of food

wasted in the UK every single day.

Because while most of us have ended up

chucking out what's left -

oh, I don't know, some gone-off cheese or mouldy veg -

it seems that the problem is on a far bigger scale.

A recent study by Britain's biggest supermarket

found that we throw away - wait for this -

almost half the bakery products

and 40% of the apples we buy.

I think really shocking figures.

But how much is it simply the consumers' responsibility for waste?

Or could it be that,

thanks to the practices of some of the supermarket giants themselves,

an awful lot more food is wasted

before it ever makes it to our kitchen table?

These people are on their way to a very unusual harvest -

one that's been happening for hundreds of years

but in the modern age of food waste has extra benefit.

So it's going in and getting crops

that might not go to the shops

or that have... After the harvest is passed

that are left in the field, possibly to rot,

which is a shame.

Yeah, like perfectly good veg or fruit.

Josie, Katie, Sarah and Ilona

are members of what's known as the Gleaning Network,

groups of volunteers who go into farms right across the UK

and pick the fruit and veg that farmers can't sell.

It might be that someone somewhere in an office decides

that it's no longer the season for a certain veg

and so they don't want it any more.

Or it might be that it's not the right shape

or not the right size or...

A lot of supermarkets reject fruit and veg

because they're not straight enough or they're too wonky or whatever.

Once picked, the gleaners' harvest is donated to food banks or charities

and goes some way to helping people who can't always afford

fresh fruit and veg.

Gleaning has been going on for centuries.

When farmers know that they can't sell their entire crop,

it doesn't always make sense to spend money harvesting it.

So it's often left in the ground to simply rot.

Now, gleaning stops that food going to waste.

Since campaigns encouraging us to reduce

the amount of food we throw away at home began in 2007,

household food waste has dropped by a fifth.

But last year, the spotlight turned onto the food that's thrown away

before it even gets in to our kitchen cupboards.

'A mountain of rubbish, piles of household waste.

'Look more closely and you see about a third of it is food.'

Britain's largest supermarket, Tesco,

revealed that in the first six months of 2013

it threw away almost 30,000 tonnes of food.

They also revealed that on average, the chain throws away

almost 1,000 tonnes of fresh fruit and veg every month -

enough to make more than four million smoothies

and the same weight, if you can believe it,

as seven blue whales.

Of course, everything that Tesco threw away

had already been picked, packed and put on the shelves beforehand.

But back on the farm in Wiltshire,

Josie and the gleaners are dealing with the food that's wasted

because the supermarkets don't even want to buy it.

These pumpkins, for example,

were too small for the farmer to sell,

so they were left in the ground to rot.

I just find it incredible

that all these pumpkins are going to waste.

And we've been told that these are pumpkins

that are grown for lanterns

but they're perfectly fine to eat.

If you think about the amount of people that they can feed,

it's ridiculous!

After the gleaners have picked them,

these pumpkins will go to a local charity.

It just makes me really happy that we're here today

to take this vegetable

and matchmake it with hungry people in the country.

What we're looking for is pumpkins that don't have any soft bits on them

or bruising,

because it will affect them when they go into storage.

So if this is rotten,

then it will make the other pumpkins rot.

But if they're slightly blemished, I think that's fine.

I genuinely expected there'd be, like,

maybe a few pumpkins left over at the side of the field.

I didn't think it was going to be, like, an actual avenue

of completely perfect fruit.

These pumpkins are a casualty of supermarkets' demands

for attractive, uniform fruit and veg.

Farmers get the highest prices

for produce that's just the right size

and just the right colour

and just the right weight.

Anything outside the supermarkets' guidelines

might be worthless.

Speaking of pretty things, here's a pretty thing.

It's a carrot sent to us by Mrs Sally Woss.

She says,

"We really must hand it to you."

You certainly won't find anything

that would be worthy of a funny-shaped veg competition

at your local supermarket.

It's been claimed that to keep their produce looking perfect,

the big chains reject apples if more than 10% of the skin

is too green or too yellow.

And that tomatoes are discarded

if they aren't uniform in colour and free from lumps and bumps.

Well, we asked the supermarkets,

as well as growers, packers

and trade bodies in the world of fruit and veg,

how many of those rumours are true.

I'm afraid they weren't telling!

But it's estimated that before it can even get

anywhere near the shelves,

the supermarkets deem about 40% of our fruit and veg unsellable.

Now, campaigners say there are other ways

that the demands of the supermarkets,

and their massive buying power,

can lead to waste.

Retailers will specify to farmers

that they need to supply a certain amount of produce

on a pre-defined date.

That means that the farmer,

in order to not risk losing some of their money,

maybe missing that contract the next time,

will actually over-produce

the amount of fruit and vegetables that they're supplying.

Which means that there's wastage

if he can't, or she can't, find a suitable outlet.

The majority of that wasted crop is fit to eat.

And one of the side-effects of this

is that we end up paying more for the privilege of pretty produce.

Consumers want their carrots to be straight and not knobbly

because they're easier to peel,

whereas a lot of other carrots are perfectly edible to eat.

There is a price knock-on for consumers

because you're paying for that quality.

And if that quality is just based upon the look

rather than the taste of the product,

that's almost an artificial barrier.

Wasted veg isn't just a British problem.

But we're very slow to catch on to a trend

that's already taken hold in Europe.

In fact, a new restaurant in Copenhagen

has been founded with a specific mission -

to use ingredients that the food industry has discarded,

surplus fruit and veg that can't be sold.

But there are signs that some supermarkets in the UK

are changing their demanding standards.

We are starting to see

more and more retailers

getting into the market of selling

what was I guess originally termed as Class II,

or second-class produce.

In fact, when the poor harvest of 2012

meant that British farms couldn't produce enough fruit and veg,

some supermarkets relaxed their usual rules on selection

and started to sell some that would usually be termed as "ugly veg".

It saved over 300,000 tonnes of food by doing that

and shows that there is a huge, almost artificial, barrier

to getting food that is affordable, that is perfectly good to eat,

to everyday consumers.

We asked the big four supermarkets

about their attitude to selling "ugly" fruit and veg.

Sainsbury's confirmed that in 2012 it...

..to support farmers with their...

It hasn't had to do that since, but say if an orchard produced

irregular-shaped apples they would go...

..labelled as being...

Morrisons also said it had relaxed its specifications on fresh produce...

Tesco insists it takes...

..to the produce it sells across all of its ranges,

with irregular-sized products

included in the Everyday Value range.

Tesco bosses have also been saying

that it is we the consumer

who needs to learn to love wonky veg

so they can sell us more misshapen produce.

And Asda, too, said that it offers a choice in different ranges,

while maintaining that it finds...

..with the more unusual-shaped ones being processed

for their diced and grated carrot bags.

It says the same happens with onions and mushrooms.

But until our supermarkets make a more regular commitment

to save lower-grade crops from the compost heap,

it's down to the gleaners to do it for them.

And back in Sussex, Josie is putting one of her gleaned pumpkins

to very good use.

So had we not turned up,

this pumpkin would have likely

just been left in the field to rot.

Or the farmer may have made a big compost pile

and it just would have gone to waste.

And it's perfectly edible,

so I'm going to make a nice soup out of it to feed the family.

Next, it wasn't that long ago

that frozen food was a mainstay of our weekly shop,

and it was certainly a perfect way

of making food last that little bit longer.

But in recent years it's fallen distinctly out of fashion

and we've even seen supermarkets cutting back

on the space that they give to frozen foods.

So are we missing a trick here?

Because when we're all so worried about the cost of what we eat

and whether or not it's good for us -

not to mention all that fresh food that apparently goes to waste,

costing us thousands every year -

it does seem there are some very good reasons

why it might be time to give frozen food a second chance.

Back in the days of black-and-white TV

something new emerged from the ice

or, more correctly, from the ice boxes

in our shiny new freezers.

As the drab post-war world of rationing

gave way to an era of plenty

and our kitchens started to get kitted out with mod cons,

even the food seemed to become more cheerful and optimistic.

So, if Birds Eye peas are picked mid-morning,

they're frozen before lunch.

# Birds Eye peas... #

Bright, shiny and super-convenient -

frozen food began to find its place on our plates.

Fish fingers, frozen peas, and that modern miracle the TV dinner

all became such a staple part of our diets at one time

that the freezers to accommodate all that food

just got bigger and bigger.

And then, of course, there was the sign of the '70s

with frozen-food shops springing up on every high street in the country.

So, just how important did it become?

Suddenly, you had this new, amazing device in the home

that allowed you to store food indefinitely

and it really freed up the housewife -

and these devices were aimed at housewives -

and allowed them to do things like go to work,

and it played a big role in how our society's changed.

What is the advantage of frozen food

over buying fresh straight from the supermarket shelves

or off the counter of a farmer's market?

It meant that women

didn't have to cook and shop from scratch every day,

which is how it used to be done,

because you didn't have a fridge, you didn't have a freezer.

The housewife would go out with a basket every day,

collect ingredients and bring it home.

And also, it allowed you to bulk-buy and store,

so it actually lowered the cost of the family expenditure on food.

But then frozen food met its match -

and the boffins created an even more convenient way

to help us avoid actually cooking.

Allied with the "ping" of the microwave,

the ready meal was born -

and frozen began to feel distinctly old-fashioned.

Along came chilled food with its kind of sophisticated, urban,

single, 20-something image.

It all looked dead fresh and exciting.

But it's not over yet.

Frozen food may not be quite as popular as it once was,

but it's certainly not ready to be consigned to the history books.

In fact, the champions of frozen food

have what they claim is a big message

which they think is going to spearhead its comeback.

You see, they claim that actually frozen food is better for you

than its more fashionable equivalent of chilled or even fresh.

That's right - it's not just good for you,

but nutritionally it is better.

And the frozen-food industry

has commissioned independent research to prove it.

The thing about fresh food is that we often don't know

how long it's taken in terms of its transit time

from harvest through to arriving into the shops.

Whereas with many frozen foods

we do know that the time taken between harvesting and processing

can actually be very short.

The nutrients within those foods are retained much better

if they are processed very quickly,

as opposed to those which are being kept fresh for some time.

There's a good chance they may have deteriorated during transit.

In other words, food frozen immediately can sometimes

retain goodness and nutrients a lot better than the fresh alternative.

And that's exactly what happens in factories like this one in Norfolk,

where nutrients are frozen in before they start to decline.

These peas today have come to us from Louth

which is approximately an hour and a half travelling time

from the field they were vined in today.

The first stage in the freezing process

is to steam the peas for 60 seconds.

In doing that, we neutralise the enzymes and the bacteria.

Those two elements are the two elements

that break down in the peas' deterioration.

It's the steaming that holds the colour, taste and crispness

inside the product

before it heads to the next stage - the blast freezer.

The peas enter into the blast freezer

and they enter through the wind tunnel, operating at about 60 mph

at minus 30 to minus 40 degrees.

It's this act of freezing the product as quickly as possible

that can help to make the unfashionable frozen choice,

at least for some veg, healthier than the fresh alternative.

But are shoppers aware of this?

-Do you buy frozen or fresh?

-I buy frozen.

Would it surprise you if I told you that actually, by buying frozen,

you're probably getting peas, or vegetables of any sort,

that have got more vitamins and goodness in them than the fresh ones?

-Because they're frozen straight from the ground.

-Really?

-Yeah.

-Fresh, if I can.

-why?

Erm... It's quicker to cook, I think it's better for you.

I don't know, you tell me. Why do I buy fresh over frozen?

Frozen foods have usually got rather more vitamins and things in them

than the fresh, simply because

they're frozen straight from the ground.

-Right, OK. So...

-And it may take a few hours or a day or two

-before you get the fresh ones.

-OK, that's a good point.

-I would probably prefer the fresh.

-Why?

-Just because they're...

I assume they're fresher, they would taste slightly better.

But with the frozen,

obviously, from a convenience point of view, it keeps longer.

Well, it might interest you, then, to know that the frozen vegetables

are very often full of more vitamins and goodness.

Oh, right, well, OK. Well, maybe frozen's OK, then.

I find the frozen ones are much easier.

It's a psychological thing

about buying fresh vegetables and cooking them.

It's a psychological thing - that's all it is.

Well, it seems there are still some of us who need convincing

to turn back to frozen food.

But there's going to be one thing

really will help to make our minds up -

and that's the cost.

It doesn't take an awful lot of research online

to realise that there's a huge difference in price

between fresh and frozen produce.

Let's, for example, take a nice simple vegetable - the pea.

And if you search online

for the four largest supermarkets in this country

you'll see that the price difference is absolutely stark.

As much as 1,000%.

Now, at Tesco's, for instance,

you can buy a kilo of frozen peas for 99p.

Whereas their Fresh & Easy hand-picked peas -

the fresh equivalent - is £10 a kilo.

Even their poshest, their Finest frozen peas,

are £2 a kilo, which is five times less than the fresh equivalent.

And it is pretty much the same story

with the other supermarkets we checked out.

With price differences that significant

you'd think that we'd all be tempted to fill up our freezers.

But, like all foods, you need to check

exactly what is in the product you're buying.

Because, as those frozen lasagnes with added horsemeat proved,

frozen food doesn't always mean great food.

Some frozen products are terrific things to have

as a standby in your freezer.

Frozen peas, frozen raspberries - fantastic.

But you have to keep a lookout for the cheap stuff.

If it's cheap, ask yourself why.

Have a very careful look at the ingredients list.

If it's got a very long ingredients list in tiny letters

with lots of stuff that you've never heard of,

I'd give it a bit of a swerve.

It takes a lot of time, care and money

to produce good-quality meat and meat products,

so if it's cheap I would be very suspicious.

Read the label carefully and maybe buy something else.

So maybe there's a very good reason

for us to look afresh at the frozen aisle.

You've got the nutritionist element, the waste element,

the convenience element - frozen food's a winner.

Here at Rip Off Britain,

we're always ready to investigate

more of your stories on any subject -

confused over your bills,

or just trying to wade through never-ending small print.

When they sit you down to sign up for things,

they don't really give you the chance or the time

to read through all of that small print.

Maybe you're unsure what to do when you discover you've lost out

and that so-called "great deal" has ended up costing you money.

These people have ripped me off,

well and truly.

Or you might have a cautionary tale of your own

and want to share the mistakes you made with us.

You can write to us at...

Or send us an e-mail to...

The Rip Off team is ready and waiting to investigate your stories.

Well, it's clear that we can all do our bit

to reduce the amount of food we throw away.

But, as we've seen, it's not all down to us.

And there's plenty more the food industry,

and especially the supermarkets, can do

to cut these shocking levels of waste.

This programme's really made me think about it all

because I am a bit wasteful and I buy too much.

Guilty - me, too.

We can all start, you know, by only putting in our trolley

what we know we actually need and are going to use.

And, of course, rediscovering that good old faithful, the freezer,

before putting stuff in the bin.

Well, that's where we have to leave it for today,

but we'll be back investigating more stories to do with food very soon.

So, until then, thanks for watching and, from all of us here,

-bye-bye.

-Bye-bye.