Do you mind buying bruised/mishapen/ripe food or is the BBC being sanctimonious?

[belledechocolatefluffybunny]

I have no problem buying food that's not perfect, I am miffed that the BBC has spent money producing this programme. Do you lot only want perfect food?

Why can't they just sell it?

I would be thrilled if sainsburys had a few shelves of whatever random mishapped veg was going spare. The stuff that grows in my garden comes in some pretty random shapes and sizes but it tastes better than most of the food I buy.

probably becasue most people would buy it and then they'd lose their markup on the premium stuff.

The thing is though, posters have mentioned European supermarkets and an MP just did on the programme... Huuuuulllloooo how can they ignore the EU? They can't! It's the blimming supermarkets I tell you!

it's the supermarkets.

I worked on a fruitfarm on a strawberry 'line' many many moons ago and they had the 'misshapen' rule then,18 odd years ago.

Maybe it's how the UK is interpreting the directive from the EU. Hmm, I may have to look into this.

I often get misshaped and slightly marked fruit and veg from my local market and there's nowt wrong with it. However, a lot of people can't get to a farm shop or pick your own place like those chefs seem to be visiting and are reliant on the supermarkets or local shops.

I didn't see the bit about rummaging in bins, but when I worked in M&S the bins were kept in a storage area and not able to be accessed by the public.

I don't mind scruffy food but I'm not paying for bruised bananas or squashed grapes. Knobbly carrots and bumpy potatoes are fine, they tend to get peeled and chopped anyway.

Oh and the programme was crap. As if we would be given permission to rummage through their bins.

Although I agree that it is the supermarkets fault, it is also the consumers fault as supermarkets will only sell what people will buy and if people won't buy it (and a lot of people won't) then the supermarkets won't sell it.
Also, some of it they can't sell (and in fact can't even give away) due to it being past its sell by date and if they sold/gave it away they would a) be breaking the law and b) be liable to have their asses sued off if someone did get sick from it - and that does apply if they give it away too.
So it is partly the supermarkets fault for not giving consumers the choice, but more that anything the consumers fault because most people won't buy it and will immediately blame the supermarkets for the fact that they didn't know how/didn't bother to check whether it was actually alright to eat.
Personally i don't really bother with the dates on things - i smell it, feel it, look at it (depending on what it is) and I can generally see whether or not it is edible, but then again my Mum taught me to do this and if you have never been taught this then you don't necessarily want to risk using things that aren't ok to eat......its a pretty complex issue, far more complicated than the programme made it out to be.

"I worked on a fruitfarm on a strawberry 'line' many many moons ago and they had the 'misshapen' rule then,18 odd years ago."

I thought any rejects would go into jam.

You can make a banana loaf out of squashed bananas (yum). Would you eat them if you had already purchased them and they were bruised on the way home?

Crackfox-maybe it was made into jam,but we had to sort misshapen strawberries as they weren't 'suitable' for supermarket sales.

I'd only buy bruised if it was for jam/soups etc.... but quite happily will take ripe and misshapen fruit. Supermarkets have forced their ideas onto us, that only uniform looking fruit and veg will do.

The UK has an obsession with 'normal' and everything/everybody being the same. We want children to be 'normal', our shops are all the same all over the country (every city has a M$S, Next, BHS etc), we can only buy 'normal' food Is there no individuality in this country??

They might do crackfox, but often jam-makers will want specific varieties (darker colour, smaller.berries therefore higher pectin content) which are different from fruit sold as fresh, which needs to be larger, brighter lighter colour, which can travel well and has good keeping qualities.

mishapen - no probs, most stuff gets chopped up and or cooked anyway.
bruised - yes if it is special price
offal (sp?) - not keen, but maybe that is because I never learnt to cook with it

I was astounded by the amount of bread that was in the bins. I bake my own bread and we eat every last bit of it. on the rare occasion that I buy bread, it often starts to be mouldy just after a day or two. that never happens with my homemade bread which keeps well for up to a week (ok it goes slightly stale, but put in in the toaster and it is as good as fresh bread...)

If I shop in store I won't choose bruised nanas, if they get really battered on the way home they would get whizzed up in a smoothie.

But DD2 has a banana in her lunch box daily and will insist on a good one! So we have to treat our nanas gently

belle DH have watched it and found it really interesting.

I would buy misshapen fruit and veg if it was available, what angers me is that the supermarkets don't even offer it to us, but they have such a stranglehold on the marketplace that I can only think of one greengrocer in my very large town.

poshwellies - yes, yum yum to Matt Tebbutt

I'm with JMS, I genuinely believe the supermarkets have forced this issue on us... There are millions of consumers out there, a significant proportion of which would be happy to grab a mishapen pepper from a shelf. Supermarkets overstock, supermarkets only source perfect fruit and veg.

Where the public are at fault is when they throw away perfectly decent stuff from the fridge as they restock each week, overbuying and wasting.

I'll have a look at the EU rules, It's possible that the UK are interpreting them incorrectly, especially as other members don't have a problem selling misshaped fruit and veg.

Aliba- He is quite delicious isn't he?

This programme irritated me. It was all about, "look at us, we can do nice cooking with some bread and courgettes." I didn't doubt that the food was useable; we could see that on the screen, so we didn't need a load of santimonious chefs bleating on. They didn't actually tell us what to do to help remedy this problem- it was all, oh look, supermarkets waste good food, aren't they bad. And all they seemed to make them do was sign little black cards.

I might try dumpsterdiving tomorrow- I will update and let you all know how it went. If I am confronted by supermarket employees, I will explain that my actions are sanctioned by the BBC.

The problem is not supermarkets but self-service. If I am picking out fruit & veg myself from the shelf then I am hardly going to pick mis-shapes or bruises, am I? In the good old days, you got what the greengrocer gave you - like it or lump it.

Good luck Florence!

Thank you, but I don't need luck- I have the might of the BBC behind me. It cannot go wrong. See here.

I wonder if Waitrose will mind if people do this?