Tesco blast at 'fussy' shoppers: Supermarket boss blames customers for food waste



Retail giant threw away 30, 000 tonnes of food in the first half of this year



Supermarket boss blames UK customers for ‘always pick the cream of the crop’

Researchers found up to two thirds of supermarket food was wasted



Fussy shoppers are a major cause of food waste, Tesco claimed yesterday.



The supermarket giant said UK customers ‘always pick the cream of the crop’, forcing it to bin thousands of tons of old or misshapen produce.



Its Eastern European customers are, by contrast, more willing to accept less than perfect food.



Tesco said its Eastern European customers are, by contrast, more willing to accept less than perfect food

‘Customers naturally select, they always pick the cream of crop first and the rest of it then gets left.

'Then the new deliveries come in and you have the new cream of the crop – the old, ugly misshapen produce goes to waste.



'Customers will always make the choice of the one that cosmetically looks better. That’s a very difficult reality to us.’

Mr Simister said Tesco would try to persuade more people to buy misshapen fruit and vegetables, including by using more cut-price deals.



He acknowledged the industry had a role in ‘educating’ people to accept that wonky carrots and blemished apples were ‘perfectly good food’.



But he said the retailer sends much of its misshapen produce to its outlets in Eastern Europe, where customers on tighter budgets do not object.



In October, Tesco revealed that it generated almost 30,000 tons of food waste in the first six months of the year.



It found that up to two thirds of supermarket food ends up in the bin, including 68 per cent of bagged salads, half of bakery goods and a quarter of grapes.



Much of the food is thrown away by customers but large amounts are lost because they have been on display too long.



Tesco revealed that it generated almost 30,000 tons of food waste in the first six months of the year

Two in five apples and a fifth of bananas are never eaten. The supermarket has now scrapped confusing ‘display until’ dates on fresh fruit and vegetables, and ended buy one get one free offers on salads.



Mr Simister said: ‘We can put more misshapen products through our value range at better prices, we’ve been doing that for years. There are opportunities to do more.



‘It’s less easy to be flexible with the standard ranges, but we can be more flexible with the product that flushes through the stores at a good price for customers.



‘We do have a role to educate people. It’s weak to just do what customers think. Our role is to [help them] to make the right choices.’

Small marks on the skin of fruits do not affect their flavour, but farmers complain that supermarkets will often reject blemished produce.



Apples with slight blemishes or russetting, which makes them too red for the supermarkets, are routinely rejected.



Other fruit is dumped for having small marks, despite the absence of any impact on taste. Vegetables have to meet certain size and shape standards.



Farmers complain they can have up to 40 per cent of their crop rejected for ‘cosmetic’ reasons.



Food waste has risen sharply up the political agenda following a series of reports showing vast quantities of supermarket food are thrown away, either by customers or the stores themselves.

Tesco researchers found that up to two thirds of supermarket food ends up in the bin, including 68 per cent of bagged salads, half of bakery goods and a quarter of grapes

In January, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers said that up to half the food bought in the West was binned. It said the waste was being caused by poor storage, strict sell-by dates, bulk offers and consumer fussiness.



Last month the Government’s Waste and Resources Action Programme said families waste £60 a month by throwing the equivalent of almost a meal a day into the bin. It said £12.5billion worth of food is wasted annually.



Experts blamed the throwaway culture but said shoppers were also confused by sell-by dates and tempted by offers to buy more food than they need.



Despite being a lunchtime favourite, 13 per cent of chicken which could have been eaten is also thrown out – the equivalent of 86million whole chickens a year.



Strict EU rules on misshapen fruit and vegetables were relaxed following years of criticism. Marketing standards detailing acceptable sizes and shapes were scrapped altogether for 26 types of produce, including carrots, cauliflowers, cucumbers, leeks, plums and onions.

