Episode 5 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.

You think you're getting a bargain and you're not really,

they're just encouraging you to buy more of a product

when you don't need to.

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

ripped off by promises made about what you eat and what you pay for it.

What really winds me up, I suppose, is the price of so-called

healthy food in comparison with the unhealthy stuff.

The unhealthy stuff seems to be so much cheaper.

From claims that just don't stack up,

to the secrets behind the packaging,

we'll uncover the truth about Britain's food, so that you can

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

Your food, your money,

this is Rip-Off Britain.

Hello, and welcome once again to Rip-Off Britain,

where in this special series we're uncovering

the secrets of the foods that we all eat every day.

And when you hear some of the stories that we've lined up,

believe me, you'll understand why the industry might just prefer

to keep some of these things well and truly hidden.

That's because today we're investigating something

that you'd think should be really simple.

If something's described as fresh, how fresh does it have to be?

What does fresh really mean?

The answers may be quite a surprise.

And those answers could save you money as well.

Because as well as exposing the foods that aren't as fresh

as you'd expect, we're also going to be revealing

which of those long-forgotten ingredients that are lurking

at the back of your cupboard are still absolutely fine to eat.

-And how many of those have we all got?

-Many.

So if you're planning a kitchen clear-out,

don't throw anything away until AFTER you've seen this programme.

Coming up, why there really is something fishy

about some of the food we buy from the supermarket fish counter.

We've a test to sniff out how much isn't good enough to eat.

Absolutely no flavour.

No, it's off.

And a woman who thinks nothing about sprinkling 30-year-old herbs

into her dinner.

So, is that frugal cooking at its best?

Or a health and safety disaster waiting to happen?

They're a bit vintage really but it doesn't matter to me,

as long as they smell all right and they taste all right,

then I'll use them.

Whenever you buy fresh fish from a supermarket fish counter,

you probably have a pretty clear idea

of how fresh you expect it to be.

Well, you may remember that last year

we put that freshness to the test.

And were surprised to find that the fish we bought

at four different supermarkets was not as fresh as you'd expect.

In fact, some of it was even off.

And it was likely to have been caught

at least two weeks before we bought it.

Now, we found those results pretty shocking.

But were they just a one-off?

Well, to find out, we've been back to the lab.

So the next time you buy fresh fish from the supermarket,

how likely is it that it really is going to be fresh?

When it comes to fish, the fresher the better.

In fact, we eat one-and-a-half billion pounds worth of fresh fish

every year. And we're turning our backs on the frozen kind

in favour of the freshest fish that we can find.

But unless you're lucky enough to live by the sea,

you probably get yours from the local supermarket.

And what you're buying may well have had a longer journey

from sea to shelf than you think.

Last year, we tested the freshness of fish

from supermarkets in Taunton.

And the results were pretty dire.

Now, there's something not quite right with this one.

Um...there are off odours. Sorry, it's off.

Richard Chivers has 30 years' experience testing fish

and he tested our samples using the industry standard Torry scale,

which relies on a combination of taste and smell.

He was horrified by what he found.

At least 50% of the fish was not of a satisfactory quality to be sold.

When we told supermarkets about our results,

some were shocked, several more were disappointed

and at least one thought that it might have been a one-off result.

But one year on then, we thought we would see what would happen

if we tested even more fresh fish

from an even wider selection of supermarkets.

Just as last year, we're testing cod, haddock and fish pie mix

from the supermarkets' fresh fish counters.

But to make sure that we're not just catching the odd shop on,

literally, an off day...

this time we're going on a super-sized shopping trip.

We've swapped last year's location for somewhere

that's about as far away from the sea as it's possible to get.

We've sent members of our team to no fewer than 14

different supermarkets

in the West Midlands.

They're all within 50 minutes' drive of our test kitchen

where, once again, the taste buds of fish expert Richard Chivers

are poised to put them to the industry standard freshness test.

To keep the fish fresh, we put the samples on ice

as soon as we left each store.

And Richard is hoping that this time

the results will be a lot better than the ones before.

There is no reason why the fish that we take today should be off.

If Richard is right, he should have no problems as he eats.

But with so many samples to test,

we've tried to make things as comfortable for him as we can.

Hi, there. What can I get you today?

-I think I'll have the cod, please.

-OK.

To keep the test as fair as can be,

Richard won't know until after he's tasted them,

which of the 35 samples belongs to each supermarket.

On order. Table two, one cod.

MAN: Yes, Chef.

Just like last year, he'll be grading the fish

using the industry standard Torry scale.

Remember, the higher the score out of ten, the fresher the fish.

And anything below six means that the fish is off.

First up, cod from Asda, Morrisons, Tesco and Sainsbury's.

Sales from these four supermarkets account for nearly two thirds

of all the fresh fish we eat.

And we get off to a promising start with a good score

for Tesco's first sample.

It has no sweetness.

Um...definitely not off.

And things only get better, with even higher scores

for the cod samples from the other Tesco branches.

Hmm.

Richard gave them a 7.5 and an 8.

The cod from the other supermarkets couldn't match that eight.

But it did come close with Sainsbury's, ASDA and Morrisons cod

each having one sample that also scored a 7.5.

That's higher than any of the supermarket cod we tested last year.

Yeah.

That's OK.

But it wasn't all good news.

The rest of their cod didn't scale those same dizzy heights.

and there were low scores too.

With two sixes for Morrisons.

Absolutely no flavour at all.

Two 6.5s for Sainsbury's.

And one sample from Asda getting a lowly five.

Which, according to Richard, means...

No...it's off.

Next, Richard tests the haddock, with two samples from Sainsbury's.

That's good, yeah.

And one from Tesco all scoring our test's highest marks, an 8.5.

Good fish, yeah.

In fact, 10 out of the 12 samples of haddock scored 7 or higher.

Meaning the haddock is the freshest supermarket fish we found.

This is...this sample is a lovely piece of fish.

But unfortunately for Morrisons,

the two remaining low-scoring haddocks were both theirs.

Tasteless.

It's not off but...you've got no flavour there.

And one of them scored just 5.5, which again means...

That haddock...

..is verging on off.

Morrisons calls its fresh fish department a fishmonger.

So it's especially surprising that both cod and haddock from there

scored right at the bottom of the scale for freshness.

We check the quality of every piece of fish we prepare,

so you know that when you come in store, you're getting our very best.

But we've still one more set of samples to test.

The fish pie mix. And Richard has particular concerns about these.

Last year, I called fish pie mix the final resting place

of the various species of fish that were used.

And it didn't take long before things soured again.

Oh...

There's something not good in there.

Just like last year, the fish pie mix recorded the lowest score

in our tests, with one sample from Morrisons scoring a five.

Richard reckons, that means the fish could well have been caught

up to two weeks earlier.

Sainsbury's and Tesco also sold us low-scoring fish pie mix.

With one 6.5 from Tesco.

Slightly disappointing, actually. The texture's good...

but the flavour...

And a 5.5 from Sainsbury's.

That is a product that I would reject.

But, unlike last year, there was some fish pie mix that scored well.

-Very well, in fact.

-Yeah.

Seven of our samples scored seven or more.

And two of those, from Morrisons and Tesco, scored an eight.

I liked it, I liked what we were offered.

Very nearly the highest score in the entire test.

So perhaps fish pie mix isn't always the final resting place

for our fish!

Oh, well. The results are

an awful lot better than they were last year.

Well, maybe they got a kick up the bottom.

So, once Richard had munched his way through all 35 of our samples

of fish, we totted up the marks, averaged them out

and scored the supermarket out of a maximum of 30.

Tesco came out top, with an overall score of 23 out of 30,

and nothing that was off.

That's good news for the store that sells nearly a quarter

of all the fresh fish we eat.

Sainsbury's came second with 21.5 out of 30.

Their high-scoring haddock was top of the tree

but they were let down by that fish pie mix that was off.

Close behind was Asda, scoring 21 out of 30.

Its score was damaged by a cod sample that wasn't fit to eat.

And finally, in fourth place, as it was last year,

Morrisons, with 19 out of 30.

It may have had a wonderfully fresh fish pie mix,

but that didn't make up for the fact that 3 of the 12 samples

we bought from Morrisons stores... were classed as off.

But while that's a disappointment, overall Richard's confident

that the fish we've tested this time is an improvement on last year.

They've upped their game, the fish is definitely better.

Overall I think it's better.

We put the results of our tests to the supermarkets.

Tesco decided not to comment

but of the ones that didn't net the highest score,

Sainsbury's told us it uses various criteria including...

..when assessing its fish, to ensure good quality

for its whole shelf life.

Asda said it was surprised at our results,

as it's committed to selling only the highest quality seafood.

And lowest scorer Morrisons told us that it uses careful planning

to ensure that the time between fish being caught

and then sold on its counters, is minimal.

The store went on to say that it considers the Torry scale to be:

As for Richard, well, although he was pleased that there was such

a sea change in the quality of fish tested this year,

he believes that there's still plenty of room for improvement.

Some of the fish was really good, a lot of it was average,

unfortunately, some of it was very poor because it's off.

And that's unacceptable.

Oh, dear. Well, let's be honest, if you open your kitchen cupboard

and have a good old rummage, I bet you'll find quite a bit of food

lingering at the back that's way past its use-by date.

I know I do, on a regular basis.

And it's often the case with those little jars of herbs and spices

that only get used once in a while, or were bought for a special recipe

and now we either can't bear to throw them away,

or we just plain forgot about them.

Well, we've found a larder that's positively bursting with dried herbs

that seem well past their best.

But, once rediscovered, what do you do with them?

Chuck them out? Or could they possibly still be safe to use?

There is another dimension beyond that which is known to any cook.

It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity.

It is an area that we call... The Cupboard That Time Forgot.

Like many of us, Sharon Hack can struggle to finish off

certain ingredients in her cupboard before the date is up.

But that's never really bothered her

and she's happy to just keep on using them.

They're a bit vintage really, but it doesn't matter to me, as long as

they smell all right and they taste all right, then I'll use them.

Some of the spices actually taste better if they're a bit out of date.

And if it's fine, you open it, stick your finger in.

If it tastes OK, warm it up and eat it.

Chances are your cupboards may have a few things like Sharon's.

So is she doing the right thing by still eating them?

To find out, we took some examples of her elderly ingredients

to the Flavour Centre at Reading University.

Dr Jane Parker will be testing the pungency of the herbs and spices

to see how much aroma and flavour they've preserved over the years.

We've got a fresh ground ginger that we bought from the supermarket

this week and it should be bursting full of flavour.

We've got one that's about four or five years old

and we anticipate that the flavour will have changed.

And then we've got the one from Sharon's kitchen,

which dates from the 1980s, so that's 30 years old.

Jane is running the ginger through this fancy bit of kit,

called a gas chromatograph mass spectrometer.

This snappily titled object vaporises the sample

and sensors are able to read how much of the pungency remains.

We'll come back when it's done, to find out the results.

But in the meantime, it's back to Sharon's to meet a chef

who shares some of her views.

Mark Lloyd is not too proud to use ingredients that other chefs

may consign to the bin.

So he's come to Sharon's house to see if they can rustle up something new

but still delicious, from some of her oldest ingredients.

This is so old that it doesn't even have a best before on it,

that's how long ago you must have bought this.

-SHE LAUGHS

-11p! You can't get anything for 11p

now. Right, I think we need to have a little sniff test

-with some of these.

-Yeah.

So, I think we'll start with, with the ground ginger.

Well, it's certainly still gingery enough,

it's whether it still has the...has the flavour as well as the smell

but the smell's still there.

-I think we'll be able to use that...

-All right, we'll have a go with it.

But the 1980s ginger isn't the only thing that's surprised Mark.

What would you need, one whole jar of dried chives for, never mind two?

I don't know, it must have been a recipe that I wanted to cook

and never got round to doing it.

So, our 2004 vintage...

..to be fair, they're a little bit grey, aren't they?

Dried herbs are one thing but what about the rest of the food

lurking in Sharon's cupboards?

Mexican-style beans, I buy these because I like them in salad.

So that's May 2013.

And this one is May 2016, so that one's in date

but the one next to it, which is exactly the same thing.

Ah! I've got one better.

2006.

Oh, my God.

Now, in fact, most tinned goods should still be fine to eat

well past their best-before date, provided they've been stored

in a cool, dark place, and the can isn't dented or damaged in any way.

But as for those dried cupboard ingredients,

well, generally Mark thinks that as long as they still smell

like they should, they're good to use.

Though you might want to add a bit more than you usually would.

If I did find anything that was out of date, I would check it,

I would use my smell, my taste, my common sense.

Obviously, if it was a tin and it was blown or something like that,

then I'd be a bit more cautious but things like dried herbs,

I would use up, I wouldn't be too worried about them at all.

In the UK, seven million tonnes of food and drink

is thrown away each year by households.

But more than half of this is usually still fit to eat or drink.

Sharon and Mark have now cooked up a dish

with potentially a rather matured flavour.

They've created a vintage veg curry and rice.

-It's too nice to talk.

-Is it? Is it good?

It's maybe not as strong as if the herbs and spices

had been a little bit fresher but there's still

-all of that flavour there, isn't there?

-It's full of flavour.

Absolutely full of flavour. That is absolutely wonderful.

Back at the lab, the test results are in.

Here I've got a chromatogram of the brand-new,

fresh ginger sample, and you can see there's lots of peaks

and each one of those has got a different aroma,

and together they make up ginger flavour.

So if that's what an analysis of fresh ginger looks like.

How does Sharon's 30 year vintage sample measure up?

This is it here this red line along the top.

So actually you can see that

virtually everything has disappeared.

However you can zoom in on this red line

and you will start to see some peaks.

So it's not that it's got no flavour,

it's just got very, very low levels of flavour compounds.

So if herbs and spices are out of date in the cupboard,

you won't have the quality,

but they're perfectly safe to eat.

That's good news for Sharon, who is a firm believer that our instinct

when checking these kinds of food is better than we think.

Well, I've been eating out-of-date ingredients,

but it doesn't bother me at all.

As long as it looks good and tastes good, it doesn't matter.

So, a little bit of common sense.

But use up some of this stuff. You've got so much of it!

I know. I'll try.

Still to come on Rip-Off Britain.

The big name stores joining the battle against food waste

and how one supermarket chain has found an extraordinary new use

for the food and alcohol it can't sell.

Turning its waste into energy.

I think there's huge opportunity for this across the country.

I mean, this one plant generates enough power to power 15,000 houses.

Here's another new initiative.

It's designed to make better use of waste food

that would otherwise be thrown away,

and it's come from one of Britain's biggest supermarkets.

Of the 15 million tonnes of food and drink wasted in the UK every year,

almost half is thrown away by consumers.

But that still leaves an awful lot of food being binned

without ever being sold at all.

Manufacturers and caterers account for much of that

but nearly 400,000 tonnes of food a year is wasted by shops.

And a lot of you feel that that simply should never happen.

I do think supermarkets waste a lot of food.

Potentially that amount could be huge on a daily or weekly basis, really.

You look at the products, which are on the shelves

and most have only got a sell by of a day or so.

And I'm thinking, "Well, how can they possibly

"get rid of all that food when there's only a day or two to go?"

Supermarkets are reasonably fine-tuned to avoid waste,

it costs them money after all.

But there are still plenty of products that fail

to make the tills ring.

At Sainsbury's the man in charge of managing the problem

is head of sustainability, that's Paul Crewe.

So he understands exactly why

so much supermarket food ends up going to waste.

Products that we have too many of.

Things like bakery and bread and through to meat and to fish.

Some products arrive with miscoded labels,

which means we are no longer able to sell them

because it would be illegal to sell them.

Around 26% of the food wasted in the UK

is binned by food manufacturers,

which many of them blame on the supermarkets' reluctance

to buy wonky or less attractive veg.

But Paul insists that at Sainsbury's, that's not the case.

We make sure that even though they're wonky they're still

beautifully tasting and so we do put them

into the Basics range for customers to actually purchase from us.

Sainsbury's claim that none of its unsold food is wasted.

And despite what you might think,

food discarded by the big supermarkets

doesn't simply end up in the bin.

In common with Tesco and Asda,

none of the waste from Sainsbury's goes to landfill.

As we're looking through the product

and checking the dates at the same time,

we might come across products like this

that have actually been damaged.

That one is obviously unfit for sale

because we're not sure of the integrity of the product.

These would then get put into the back

and then taken back to the depot.

All of this waste food is put to good use.

With some of it being used in an extraordinary way

that you probably never would've guessed.

We have a zero waste to landfill policy

which means absolutely nothing in Sainsbury's goes to landfill.

Everything that we have is put to positive use

and food waste is a vitally important part of that process.

Firstly, if we cannot give it to charity to be eaten,

we put it into animal feed,

if it can't go into animal feed, we absolutely put it into

an opportunity to create energy from waste.

Yes siree, you heard it right.

It's turned into energy.

Because while some of its rivals also have ingenious ways

of utilising their leftovers, this Sainsbury's branch in Cannock

is the first supermarket in the country to use the food it wastes

to directly provide power for both itself and for homes, as well.

They've teamed up with a local waste company to help turn the food

they throw away into a gas that can be used for energy.

Morning, sir. How are you? Good to see you.

Ian Wakelin is the Chief Executive of Biffa,

the company helping Sainsbury's turn its waste bread rolls and broccoli

into lights and heating.

We take that food waste, we create power from here.

And then we installed an electric cable for a kilometre

back to the store, so we're able to power the store

using the electricity generated by their food.

It's been a great partnership and is, as I understand it,

unique in the country.

The waste from the store is delivered on trucks

to the waste-processing centre.

And it's there that the food is crushed up,

mixed with water, making a sort of soup.

In the next chamber, bacteria is then added

which digests the waste food, creating a biogas.

Then, finally, this gas is sent to the turbines,

which burn it and create electricity.

As well as the heat and the electricity,

we also generate compost and liquid compost

which is then spread back onto farmland as a fertiliser.

While retailers are responsible for around 3% of the food wasted

in the UK, restaurants and pubs account for around twice that.

This plant helps turn food waste from some of these

into fuel, as well.

With spoiled beer, wine and other alcohol especially welcome.

Waste alcohols are fantastic - they help us to create a lot more gas

than just standard food waste.

Each day, we receive around 250 tonnes of waste.

That is around about 30 trucks worth of food waste.

A huge 1.5km cable carries the energy that's made

back to the Sainsbury's store.

And any excess that's not used by the store is fed back

into the National Grid to power homes.

While this is an unusual set-up for now,

Ian reckons there's plenty of scope for many more of us to end up

having our homes powered by the food that supermarkets throw away.

There actually aren't very many plants like this across the country.

We estimate there's currently 14 million tonnes of food waste

created in the UK every year, but only about 500,000 tonnes,

or half a million, of that is created into energy currently.

I think there's huge opportunity for this across the country.

I mean, this one plant generates enough power to power 15,000 houses.

In the next five to ten years I think we could see millions of houses

powered, potentially, by food waste.

In the meantime, for many of the shoppers here,

discovering that the store's unwanted food waste

could have been transformed into power to cook their dinner

is an unexpected but very welcome surprise.

I am surprised that my house could be running on food waste, yes.

I think if Sainsbury's are using all the food waste

to power the electricity that's a really good thing.

To realise that I could be boiling my kettle with power

that's been generated from food waste from our local supermarket

that would be something that... that would be great, really.

We shouldn't have so much waste food in the first place,

but at least if the food is being oversourced, overproduced,

at least it's still being put to

some sort of use at the end of the day.

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?

It's very frustrating because it makes what should be

a quite simple job,

a lot more complicated and I think some people just give up

and so they don't get the best deal.

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.

People are buying into this. I did, you know.

And are they going to be as awkward with them as they were with me?

You might have a cautionary tale of your own,

and want to share the mistakes that you've made with us.

It upsets me an awful lot because, you know, I'm retired

and I begrudge having to pay that kind of money out.

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, there you have it, the word fresh

has such connotations, doesn't it?

And it's so easy to think that it means,

oh, I don't know, it was picked or caught just a few days ago,

but as we've seen on this programme that isn't necessarily the case.

It could be quite a few days older

like some of that supermarket fish we tested.

And I must be really honest,

-the results of that test really did surprise me.

-I'll say.

I agree, even though the supermarkets did better than last year,

I'd have expected fish sold as fresh to come out rather better.

But at least it was good news when it came to all those jars of old herbs.

We don't have to throw them away after all.

I think that was definitely good news for an awful lot of us.

But I'm afraid that's where we have to leave things for today.

You can find more money-saving tips on our website which as always is:

And from there you can of course also send us ideas

for what you'd like us to investigate next on your behalf.

Not just for food but really anything at all that's left you

feeling short-changed or ripped off.

-So until then from all of us here on the team, bye-bye.

-Bye-bye.

-Bye.