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Jeremy Corbyn today said the amount of food thrown away by supermarkets was “painful” as he threw his weight behind the Standard’s effort to tackle food waste and food poverty.

The Labour leader took time out from his schedule to back the Food For London campaign and examine the surplus produce picked up from supermarkets by The Felix Project, our flagship project.

Inspecting a Felix van’s impressive haul of pineapples, oranges, bananas and bread rolls in his Islington constituency, he expressed incredulity that the food had been deemed unfit for sale. “Look at this banana,” he said. “It’s still green!”

He called for government legislation to make it mandatory for supermarkets to reveal food waste figures and praised The Felix Project for its work in delivering surplus fresh food from supermarkets to frontline charities helping the homeless.

“I am shocked by the level of food waste in this country,” he said. “I find it painful the way supermarkets throw away perfectly usable and edible produce, knowing that there are people who are hungry or too poor to buy the food they need.

I support this campaign because it has been very effective in highlighting this.”

His call for greater transparency from supermarkets adds to a growing clamour for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to step in and to act decisively.

Our Food Campaign What is it? This £1 million-plus initiative seeks to redistribute surplus food to tackle food poverty. What are we doing? 1. Backing the scale-up of The Felix Project — our flagship charity — which picks up surplus produce from food suppliers and delivers it to a range of charities that provide meals for those in need. 2. Awarding grants to groups through an open grants programme. Who can apply for grants? If you are a charity, community group or social enterprise tackling food waste and/or using fresh food to address food poverty, you can apply for a grant of up to £20,000. Apply by November 11 to The London Community Foundation at: londoncf.org.uk/grants/food-for-london.aspx Who are our backers? We have raised over £800,000 for Felix from Citi, Sainsbury’s, Lush founders Mark and Mo Constantine, the Evening Standard Dispossessed Fund, a hedge fund boss and the Felix Byam Shaw Foundation, which has pledged to match money raised for The Felix Project with up to £750,000. The £320,000 grants programme is funded by Citi, D&D London and the Dispossessed Fund. How you can help The Felix Project is looking for more food suppliers, especially supermarkets, food wholesalers and catering companies. Please email Daisy@TheFelixProject.org

London Mayor Sadiq Khan, Sainsbury’s CEO Mike Coupe and Lindsay Boswell, CEO of food charity network FareShare, have all backed our campaign goal for supermarkets to be transparent about food waste data.

“Defra and the Government should be regulating better,” said Mr Corbyn. As locals asked him for selfies, he explained the merits of Felix and appealed for volunteers.

“Food poverty in this constituency is on the up. It is rising because of depressed wages, frozen for many in the public sector. Levels of in-work poverty are getting worse.

“Ask anyone who has worked at a food bank and they will tell you that more and more people are using their services. I support and admire the work that’s done in food banks, but it shouldn’t be necessary.”

His comments came a month after Rachel Maskell, the shadow environment minister, called for legislation to force all councils to collect food waste. In London, 15 boroughs out of 33 do not collect household food waste.

However, Mr Corbyn said consumer habits also needed to change if the seven-million tonne mountain of food thrown out by households every year was to be tackled.

“We have a culture that is wasteful. It’s not helped by special two-for-the-price-of-one supermarket offers,” he said.

The keen gardener said he produced little household food waste. “We’re quite careful at home,” he added. “We hardly have any food waste. We use all the peelings from fruit and vegetables for compost, which I then use to grow vegetables. It’s a virtuous circle.

“Throwing food away is wasteful not just of your money, but also of the energy used to transport the food and the land where its grown. We’re not short of food in Britain — we just need a better way of organising how it is shared out.”