:00:21. > :00:24.Hello, and welcome to Inside Out. today: Two Hello,
:00:25. > :00:32.Hello, and welcome to Inside Out. Tonight we are in the Peak District.
:00:33. > :00:40.This time we have got a special programme looking at the third week
:00:41. > :00:46.yet. First, I've got a question for you. Should we eat more out of date
:00:47. > :00:52.food? We look at the campaign to use our preferred past its best before
:00:53. > :00:58.date to help reduce waste. I wouldn't notice the difference?
:00:59. > :01:10.Also tonight, a restaurant critic investigates food fraud. What if
:01:11. > :01:19.this beef is actually some old horse and these eggs are actually made in
:01:20. > :01:22.a cage? And black and gold. We visited the town which has been
:01:23. > :01:31.making liquorice for hundreds of years.
:01:32. > :01:34.You can buy it online but some charities won't give it away. And an
:01:35. > :01:38.awful lot of it ends up rotting in landfill sites. I'm talking about
:01:39. > :01:39.out of date food. And there's a campaign to get us to eat more of
:01:40. > :01:49.it. It's easy to tell when food's gone
:01:50. > :01:57.off in your fridge. You smell it before you see it. But when it's in
:01:58. > :02:01.a tin or a packet, it's harder to know if it's still edible. 20% of
:02:02. > :02:10.all the food we buy in this country ends up at a place like this. A
:02:11. > :02:13.landfill site. Every year, households discard more than seven
:02:14. > :02:19.million tonnes of food and drink each
:02:20. > :02:23.And, if you factor in all food waste including producers, supermarkets
:02:24. > :02:25.and the catering industry, that figure more than doubles to a
:02:26. > :02:32.staggering 15 million tonnes. That's 18 Wembley stadiums full of rotting
:02:33. > :02:42.food. Tonight, I visit the Yorkshire business supplying out of date food
:02:43. > :02:44.to shoppers all over the country. And the schoolchildren using it to
:02:45. > :02:52.make a gourmet lunch. And will I survive eating
:02:53. > :02:55.seven`year`old soup? Some foods have use by dates and
:02:56. > :02:59.others have best before. This seems to cause quite a bit of confusion,
:03:00. > :03:02.and it can lead to food that's safe to eat being chucked out. So what's
:03:03. > :03:06.the difference? The use by date tells you about the safety of the
:03:07. > :03:09.food. Use that food by that date to ensure it's going to be safe. The
:03:10. > :03:12.best before date is different. I tells you about the quality of the
:03:13. > :03:15.food. Even the Trussell Trust which runs most of the nation's food banks
:03:16. > :03:20.seems to misunderstand the difference. It says it doesn't give
:03:21. > :03:31.away best before expired foods because it's illegal. There is no
:03:32. > :03:36.reason people shouldn't eat food past its best before date if they
:03:37. > :03:45.wanted. Is not likely to become unsafe. But it may affect the
:03:46. > :03:49.texture or flavour. These crisps are a month out of date
:03:50. > :03:51.and these are fresh off the supermarket shelf. But can the
:03:52. > :03:59.shoppers of Rotherham tell the difference? They are the freshest.
:04:00. > :04:09.You are wrong. Out of date. You're right. You two are eating crisps. We
:04:10. > :04:21.have some free crisps. They are in date. That one is out of date.
:04:22. > :04:24.You're wrong. I'm not buying them. Well, I've tasted them and I can't
:04:25. > :04:27.honestly tell the difference. And here at Approved Foods just outside
:04:28. > :04:32.Sheffield, they've built a multi`million pound business out of
:04:33. > :04:35.the fact that most people can't. You might not think the owner of
:04:36. > :04:38.this mansion would be a typical customer. But Sam Lyons, a busy
:04:39. > :04:45.working mum, shops online for cheap food near to or past its best before
:04:46. > :04:49.date. If you look at a product and smell it and it seems all right, you
:04:50. > :04:54.would use it and it would silly to throw it away.
:04:55. > :04:57.Sam's order's now arrived at Approved Foods, and Diane, her
:04:58. > :05:02.packer, is busy assembling it in the warehouse. But I want to know how
:05:03. > :05:11.you make money from out of date products. It is not a supermarket
:05:12. > :05:18.but you must have as many lines. We have 1601 North lines. We ship
:05:19. > :05:27.thousands every day. Food, drink, non`food, washing`up liquid. 95% of
:05:28. > :05:32.it is short dated stock but the trick is to not buy in someone
:05:33. > :05:40.else's problems. Managing director Dan Cluderay lost his job as a
:05:41. > :05:46.software designer in 2001. Me and my wife set up on a market selling
:05:47. > :05:50.short dated food and rank. Then I started to think more about online.
:05:51. > :05:57.If you had a shop, it was hard to sell these products. The firm now
:05:58. > :06:00.turns over ?5 million a year and need to expand to a warehouse five
:06:01. > :06:04.times the size of this one to cope with predicted demand. It was the
:06:05. > :06:09.waste that allowed me to grow. The stalker was out there and available
:06:10. > :06:15.to buy. It was the merging of computer skills and the need for it.
:06:16. > :06:22.I started out right at the start of the credit crunch when people were
:06:23. > :06:27.talking about saving money. And supermarkets would have been heavily
:06:28. > :06:32.taxed for dumping this stock. It would have gone to landfill. We are
:06:33. > :06:39.a viable alternative because we are selling it before it goes out of
:06:40. > :06:45.date. You have a warehouse full of branded products which the brand
:06:46. > :06:52.owners need you to get rid of. We are an extra route to market for
:06:53. > :06:56.these problem products. So this morning we saw Sam putting
:06:57. > :07:02.her order in on her computer. Here we are in your warehouse. It's
:07:03. > :07:04.there. Ten miles away, volunteers at a social enterprise company are
:07:05. > :07:06.preparing more food for distribution. This time, though,
:07:07. > :07:09.it's free. Food Aware distributes five tonnes of produce in the
:07:10. > :07:13.Rotherham area every week. It's one of the poorest areas in the country
:07:14. > :07:20.and can ill afford to waste edible food. Today we are going to a number
:07:21. > :07:25.of different projects. Local schools, children's centres. The
:07:26. > :07:30.British Red Cross. The food comes from a number of suppliers. We work
:07:31. > :07:35.with international produce, local farms, Sainsbury's, Tesco. They
:07:36. > :07:41.bring food to others and we take it to people who need it.
:07:42. > :07:43.The next day, pupils at Clifton Comprehensive School are busy
:07:44. > :07:46.preparing lunch with the produce that Food Aware's delivered. It's
:07:47. > :07:53.past its best before date or failed supermarket quality controls. It's
:07:54. > :07:58.all edible though. This is passed which is best before
:07:59. > :08:08.December. It is nearly one year before its best before date. We will
:08:09. > :08:11.see how this tastes shortly. On the menu today, these 12 and
:08:12. > :08:13.13`year`olds are cooking roasted vegetable soup, vegetable chilli,
:08:14. > :08:18.pasta bake and fruit crumble. Just think ` all this could have been
:08:19. > :08:20.thrown away or used as animal feed. While that's being prepared, I'm
:08:21. > :08:31.going to taste food that's considerably older. We are going to
:08:32. > :08:38.have a go at seven`year`old soup. Who's going first? You are.
:08:39. > :08:51.Very tasty. Very nice. Just what you need on an autumnal morning. What do
:08:52. > :09:01.you make of that? I can't taste the difference. Yeah, without a shadow
:09:02. > :09:06.of a doubt. See what you think. It tastes the same. Some of the
:09:07. > :09:13.vegetables are bit soft, that's all. So, we must not throw things away.
:09:14. > :09:17.So the past its best before date is fine.
:09:18. > :09:22.Somewhat more appetising is the soup the kids have made and it seems to
:09:23. > :09:32.be going down pretty well. It would have ended up as compost, at best.
:09:33. > :10:54.Next up, the main course. Who wants Putin? In which food did you throw
:10:55. > :11:03.away last week? `` how much food? Coming up, sweet treats. The town
:11:04. > :11:15.that has been making licorice from many centuries.
:11:16. > :11:21.Some things are not in dispute. This is a nice juicy apple. Earlier this
:11:22. > :11:24.year when horse meat was found in a supermarket `` supermarkets, it
:11:25. > :11:30.rocked our confidence. We have asked Jay Rayner to look at who is
:11:31. > :11:35.policing our food. Spaghetti Bolognese is one of the
:11:36. > :11:38.nation's favoured dishes. Unsurprisingly so. What could be
:11:39. > :11:43.better than some lovely beef simmered in olive oil served over
:11:44. > :11:47.pasta made with free range eggs? What if the beef is some old pony
:11:48. > :11:52.that should be racing in Kempton? One of the free range eggs are
:11:53. > :11:57.captured in a cage? And what of the olive oil is less innocent than
:11:58. > :12:01.claims. All of these items have been the subject of controversy in recent
:12:02. > :12:04.years. How confident can we be in our food? How can we be certain
:12:05. > :12:09.there is not going to be another horse meat scandal? Can we be sure
:12:10. > :12:13.our food is going to do what it says on the tin? What we are seeing his
:12:14. > :12:27.failings `` failings in the system. A report just published as
:12:28. > :12:31.underlined the problems. There is confusion over the role of the Food
:12:32. > :12:35.Standards Agency, which is in charge. It says detection of fraud
:12:36. > :12:45.is falling short of what consumers should expect. It is our local
:12:46. > :12:52.trading standards who are of the food police doing the checks.
:12:53. > :13:01.I'm going to take these three and do some checks on these. To understand
:13:02. > :13:05.the challenges trading standards face I'm spending the day with an
:13:06. > :13:14.enforcement officer. We are visiting a yoghurt factory in Suffolk. Is the
:13:15. > :13:28.packaging only four grams on these? They have the wrong sheet. That is a
:13:29. > :13:33.250 millilitre one. The consumer needs to know what they are getting.
:13:34. > :13:38.What trading standards are looking at here is a discrepancy over
:13:39. > :13:44.weight. It looks like it is just an oversight but they have to get it
:13:45. > :13:52.right so the consumer knows what they're getting. The team have had
:13:53. > :13:56.to prosecutions recently. Companies were ripping off consumers by
:13:57. > :14:03.selling jam that didn't contain what it said on the label. Reports of
:14:04. > :14:10.fraud are rising. The first six months of this year, 812 incidents
:14:11. > :14:16.of fraud have been reported to the Food Standards Agency. Trading
:14:17. > :14:21.standards also report an increase and yet their budgets nationally are
:14:22. > :14:25.down by a third and the number of samples able to be sent for testing
:14:26. > :14:34.is done by a quarter. There is a crisis. We have lost one third of
:14:35. > :14:41.our inspectorate. It is expected to be slashed by a further 50% in some
:14:42. > :14:50.cases. In some places in the UK, there will be no speeding standards
:14:51. > :14:56.service. With limited resources, trading standards have to try to
:14:57. > :15:02.predict problems. Here, they take a sample of milk for testing. One
:15:03. > :15:09.sample will be sent for testing and one will be retained by the
:15:10. > :15:14.business. Our weather has meant milk yields are down this year. They are
:15:15. > :15:21.testing to make sure milk is not being watered down. Officers on the
:15:22. > :15:32.ground are very busy. So is the Food Standards Agency. The FSA has been
:15:33. > :15:36.repeatedly criticised as being not fit for purpose. It was accused of
:15:37. > :15:42.acting too slowly during the horse meat scandal. Is the current system
:15:43. > :15:45.tough enough? Let's put these things in perspective. In the prior year
:15:46. > :15:54.there were more than 90,000 samples collected. 20,000 authenticity
:15:55. > :15:58.tests. 8000 on meat products. We have been testing for several years.
:15:59. > :16:03.I don't think the incident was a wake`up call as such. A former head
:16:04. > :16:11.of authenticity at the food standards agency said we are now
:16:12. > :16:18.less well`equipped to tackle fraud. He believes Budget cuts are
:16:19. > :16:20.undermining the system. The FSA rely basically on local authority
:16:21. > :16:25.results. Local authorities are under financial pressure, and therefore
:16:26. > :16:30.the amount of sampling that they are doing has been quite severely
:16:31. > :16:36.reduced. I think the whole system is really quite severely weakened. It
:16:37. > :16:38.is clearly challenging in the current financial market for local
:16:39. > :16:44.authorities to do the work they need to do. But the FSA has invested
:16:45. > :16:48.considerably more in this area to boost their resources and efforts,
:16:49. > :16:54.and it is clear the system is detecting problems, but it is going
:16:55. > :16:59.to be challenging in the future. The service will continue to evolve as
:17:00. > :17:03.things change. Two weeks after a visit to the dairy and the samples
:17:04. > :17:07.have been tested. Everything was OK. The samples had not been watered
:17:08. > :17:13.down. I did discover another problem in the system. The number of public
:17:14. > :17:20.testing laboratories has shrunk dramatically over the past decade,
:17:21. > :17:23.from 20 down to nine. Testing of our food is taking place. But food fraud
:17:24. > :17:30.has never been more attractive to criminals. And FSA report lists all
:17:31. > :17:35.the products it things could be has been the subject of fraud. It is
:17:36. > :17:40.quite a list. Honey, wine, fruit juice, spices, olive oil... Should
:17:41. > :17:43.all testing be paid for by the public purse? What about the
:17:44. > :17:53.supermarkets? We buy most of our food from them. Tesco one love ``
:17:54. > :17:57.Tesco's were one of those caught up in the horse meat scandal. You have
:17:58. > :18:03.thousands of products in Tesco. How do you decide what to test? We take
:18:04. > :18:06.a balanced view of where the biggest risk may be that something could go
:18:07. > :18:10.wrong. It could be telling consumers there is chicken in a product, and
:18:11. > :18:17.we need to be sure it is chicken and not 30. We do those tests
:18:18. > :18:22.frequently. Since horse meat was found in some of their products,
:18:23. > :18:26.Tesco saying they now carry out eight times more DNA testing. Do you
:18:27. > :18:32.think something like the worse big scandal could happen again? Our sole
:18:33. > :18:37.objective is giving the customers the best products we can. We have
:18:38. > :18:42.two insure that kind of activity, if it were there, we would catch it.
:18:43. > :18:47.And because our supply chains are shorter, we understand them better,
:18:48. > :18:52.have better controls, and the testing is stronger, that fraud
:18:53. > :18:56.should not happen again. While Tesco are confident they have learned
:18:57. > :18:59.lessons, the rest of the food surveillance system is under
:19:00. > :19:05.pressure. The big question is, can it cope? In my view, the horse meat
:19:06. > :19:10.scandal could happen again. There is always somebody prepared to cut
:19:11. > :19:15.corners. When we are faced with an Inspectorate that is creaking and
:19:16. > :19:19.has gaps and has fragmented, that is a perfect opportunity for somebody
:19:20. > :19:24.to exploit those conditions. Whilst the majority of our food is safe,
:19:25. > :19:29.food fraud is an established crime and it is all about money. Where
:19:30. > :19:32.there is money to be made, criminals will be attracted. Food is a global
:19:33. > :19:41.industry now. It is convex and hard to police. Taking sure it is what it
:19:42. > :19:48.says it is, is very tough indeed. `` making sure.
:19:49. > :19:53.They are trying to build a reputation here as a haven for food
:19:54. > :19:58.lovers. But the town of Pontefract has been renowned among people with
:19:59. > :20:02.a sweet tooth since the Middle Ages. We look at the town that is a big
:20:03. > :20:09.name in the town of `` world of sweets.
:20:10. > :20:13.I am in Pontefract, one of the oldest market towns in Yorkshire. It
:20:14. > :20:16.is also the liquid capital of Britain. A hundred years ago, there
:20:17. > :20:20.were 16 liquorice factories in the town. Now there are just two. But
:20:21. > :20:27.it's an industry that still survives today. And this is what it is all
:20:28. > :20:31.about. The Pontefract cake. It is a mixture of treacle, sugar and
:20:32. > :20:34.liquid. How do you make it? Let's find out. I'm meeting a man whose
:20:35. > :20:45.family worked in the liquorice industry for more than a century.
:20:46. > :20:52.Let's go and see these plans. These are some of the last liquorice in
:20:53. > :20:58.Pontefract? That's right. They have been here about 15 years. They are
:20:59. > :21:04.much taller. When they died back in the winter, they will go down to
:21:05. > :21:10.nothing. In April or May they will start to grow. They are at their
:21:11. > :21:19.prime now. Which part is the liquorice? Those roots grow as thick
:21:20. > :21:31.as my leg. They are full of black Jews. It goes solid like a block of
:21:32. > :21:33.coal. That is the pure licorice. `` liquorice In Pontefract, growing
:21:34. > :21:39.liquorice was big business, but the last commercial crop was harvested
:21:40. > :21:50.in 1966. Now it's imported from the Middle East. Once upon a time all of
:21:51. > :21:54.these fields were liquorice? Yes. When I was five years old, they were
:21:55. > :22:01.nothing but plans. It was the business in Pontefract? Ella
:22:02. > :22:06.McCreight was, until the 1970s. `` it was. The liquorice fields of
:22:07. > :22:12.Pontefract were a local landmark. I have wonderful memories. We used to
:22:13. > :22:16.play hide and Seek. My mother could never find me! I would be in the
:22:17. > :22:21.field somewhere playing cowboys with my mates. It was an era when men
:22:22. > :22:28.went down the pit, and women worked in the liquorice factories. If you
:22:29. > :22:37.worked there, you were called a Spanish pumper. I wore not a pumper.
:22:38. > :22:43.They did licorice allsorts in big sheets. We used to have two strip
:22:44. > :22:48.the sheet off and take them into the cutting rooms. One of the factory
:22:49. > :22:54.girls moved from Germany to post`war Pontefract. Eventually, she settled
:22:55. > :23:00.in, but it took time. I was never quite accepted. For one, I was
:23:01. > :23:09.German. And for the other, my husband was not a minor. I liked the
:23:10. > :23:14.coconut mushrooms. I used to sneak into the room where they were made
:23:15. > :23:21.and sneak a few. My sisters used to, every Tuesday with her two boys. I
:23:22. > :23:25.used to put my slaps on every Tuesday. I could just get half a
:23:26. > :23:29.dozen in my pocket. I never got caught! Now chocolate dominates the
:23:30. > :23:32.sweet market. But liquorice gave jobs to hundreds of local women,
:23:33. > :23:39.mass`producing a recipe with origins in the middle ages.
:23:40. > :23:48.I'm going to a cookery demonstration ` and I've got a confession to make.
:23:49. > :23:54.Now Tom, I am going to let you into a little secret. I am not that keen
:23:55. > :23:58.on liquorice, so you will have to convince me. By the time I have
:23:59. > :24:06.finished with you, you will love the stuff. We compress the roots and get
:24:07. > :24:15.all the juice out. That is a block of pure liquorice. It goes solid and
:24:16. > :24:21.it comes out like a rock of coal. 50 times sweeter than sugar. The
:24:22. > :24:29.sweetest thing on God's. Why can't you read that? It is too strong. We
:24:30. > :24:36.put flour into the pounds. Start steering them. Then you added
:24:37. > :24:39.demerara sugar. Kept the steering pounds going round and round. This
:24:40. > :24:46.was getting thicker and thicker. And then you added treacle. Now we have
:24:47. > :24:54.a big sticky mess. And then, to give it the flavour, we used to add a
:24:55. > :25:03.little bit of liquorice. Mix it all up and we had some of this. What is
:25:04. > :25:08.this? That is ragas. It spells sugar backwards. It stops the sweets going
:25:09. > :25:13.back to sugar. The final shot was a little drop of aniseed. You could
:25:14. > :25:18.smell it all over the town. The aroma was wonderful. We kept it
:25:19. > :25:23.steering for around three and a half hours. We emptied into big pans for
:25:24. > :25:28.it to be cooled overnight. Then it came out like that. Just like your
:25:29. > :25:33.mother used to break bread. `` baked bread. The girls will roll it out
:25:34. > :25:40.like that. They would nip it onto trays. Hated with a stamp. And they
:25:41. > :25:45.made the Pontefract cake. That is the finished product. It's a classic
:25:46. > :25:49.scene in silent cinema. Charlie Chaplin is so hungry he eats an old
:25:50. > :25:53.boot. But it wasn't leather ` it was liquorice. And, apparently, the boot
:25:54. > :26:03.was from Pontefract ` or at least that's what Tom says! I got a phone
:26:04. > :26:06.call from a gentleman and he said my grandfather has got a phone call
:26:07. > :26:12.from Hollywood. They asked him if he could make a boot out of liquorice.
:26:13. > :26:15.Tom's got a replica of Charlie's boot but, unfortunately, liquorice
:26:16. > :26:22.doesn't last ever. You've not been tempted to have a nibble yourself?
:26:23. > :26:25.Smell it. Would you? ! It smells like old boots! Pontefract's got a
:26:26. > :26:28.proud history of liquorice going back 500 years. And some campaigners
:26:29. > :26:37.want to make sure it isn't forgotten. Nor the town has a
:26:38. > :26:43.history like Pontefract. But we have no record of the history and the
:26:44. > :26:53.culture of liquorice in Pontefract. We want to create a liquorice
:26:54. > :26:59.museum. It has to be the biggest day of the year for Yorkshire's
:27:00. > :27:02.liquorice lovers. There's no museum yet, but this is the one day a year
:27:03. > :27:10.when Pontefract really celebrates its heritage. How important is the
:27:11. > :27:14.festival for Pontefract? I would say it is very, very important. It
:27:15. > :27:17.attracts thousands of people from all over the country. Pontefract's
:27:18. > :27:20.fields of liquorice have gone. But it's still the home town of an
:27:21. > :27:30.industry that's become a world`wide business. This is not Pontefract
:27:31. > :27:44.liquorice. I think this is Scandinavian. And these are part of
:27:45. > :27:48.a big order in China. It is more than a million quid's was. Forget
:27:49. > :27:50.about chocolate, for some sweet`lovers, liquorice is still
:27:51. > :27:59.best. And I think I'm getting a taste for it. Kids absolutely love
:28:00. > :28:10.this. They cannot get enough of it. Soft will stop It is a bit more is.
:28:11. > :28:15.Very moreish. I've seen lots of liquorice food here. This has got to
:28:16. > :28:19.be the strangest. A burrito. It's good, actually. Liquorice will
:28:20. > :28:28.always be at the heart of Pontefract. For Tom, it's a love
:28:29. > :28:32.that will never go away. When I die, they are going to put a bag of
:28:33. > :28:39.Pontefract cakes in Mike Coughlan. And I want a bunch of liquorice on
:28:40. > :28:44.my Coffin. That is all from here in the Peak District. Join us next
:28:45. > :28:53.week. We will be finding out about the threat to cattle from bovine TB
:28:54. > :28:58.and asking whether we are going full circle back to coal. And we try to
:28:59. > :28:59.find out if Winston Churchill was behind the sacking of JB Priestley
:29:00. > :29:00.from