OUGD603 - Brief 03 - Hellman's Brief - Research

'However, it’s so easy to forget that so much food has been wasted before we even get the opportunity to buy it. Supermarkets have such strong specifications of what they will and won’t sell to the public that thousands of tonnes of vegetables that are grown in the UK will go to waste.' - Ella Tarn

'To us, taste is everything – it’s the reason Hellmann’s exists – everything we make is designed to make food taste better. After all, you’d never eat our products on their own (unless you’re that one guy in Delaware)'

We don’t have anything against awesome food pics (we take awesome food pics ourselves). We just believe the greatest pleasure you can get from food comes from how it tastes. Because we’re on the side of food.' - Hellmann's

75% would definitely buy “wonky” if it was cheaper.

In the first programme, the pair meets farmers who tell them that they were unable to sell thousands of tonnes of their fresh vegetables to supermarkets because they were deemed imperfect. They approached Asda to suggest a small trial in store – filmed for the programme – to gauge customer perceptions of wonky produce and whether they would be willing to buy it at a discount.

“If most Brits had half an idea of the amount going to waste, they’d be snapping up ugly veg by the trolley load,” Oliver said. “There’s no difference whatsoever in taste or nutritional value. This is perfectly good food that could and should be eaten by humans. When half a million people in the UK are relying on food banks, this waste isn’t just bonkers – it’s bordering on criminal.”

Fruit and vegetables in Asda’s new Beautiful on the Inside range will be bagged separately and sold for 30% less than their “perfect” peers, as the supermarket hopes to educate shoppers on the benefits of “buying ugly” while also supporting farmers. The campaign and dedicated range will launch in selected stores from 26 January, with a view to being rolled out nationally.

In July 2009, a controversial EU ban on fresh produce (26 types of fruit and vegetables) that failed to match standard shapes and sizes – such as bent carrots, curled cucumbers and knobbly potatoes – was lifted. Up to that point, an estimated 20% to 40% of UK fruit and vegetables was routinely rejected before it reached the shops. But an expected deluge of wonky veg onto supermarket shelves failed to materialise.

The supermarkets blamed consumers for being obsessed with perfection, while farmers blamed supermarkets for sticking to rigid, high technical specifications. Retailers have gradually been relaxing these, and food banks and organisations such as Food Cycle have been grateful recipients of rejected produce. But successive reports on food waste in the supply chain show that much more could be done to make use of edible, if misshapen, foods.

Ian Harrison, produce technical director at Asda said: “Even if fruit and veg have some knobbles and blemishes, this doesn’t affect the quality or taste – a carrot is still a carrot. Customers are simply looking for great-tasting, fresh produce at a value price. Our growers are savvy and already use a large percentage of this wonky crop for further processing, for things like ready meals and juicing, but we saw an opportunity to extend this even more.”

In the first programme Oliver and Doherty meet farmers Olly and Kevin Hammond, who have been growing carrots and parsnips at Tattersett Farm in Norfolk since 1959. Doherty said: “Anything that doesn’t make the grade gets chucked. It’s a massive waste for farmers. Where ‘A’ grade carrots sell for £800 a tonne, they practically give the ugly ones away for animal feed for just £10.”

The move is supported by the government’s food waste reduction advisory body Wrap, which has said that loss and waste in the fresh produce supply chain averaged out at less than 10% but could be as high as 25% for apples, onions and potatoes.

Other large supermarkets such as Sainsbury’s and Waitrose have relaxed their specifications to sell some ugly and imperfect produce, but this is the first initiative to clearly identify and separate them from the mainstream alternative. Emma Marsh, head of Love Food Hate Waste, said: “Buying misshapen or blemished fruit and vegetables doesn’t mean you are sacrificing any of the taste. Food costs money and precious resources to produce, so we should value it.”

Kiti Soininen, head of UK food and drink research at the market research company Mintel, commented: “It is clear that consumers are open to ugly produce, but where oddly shaped fruit and veg sits with mainstream offerings, it is at risk of going unchosen, even if subconsciously. Price comes across as a real consideration for many and positioning ugly fruit and vegetables as a tasty, low-cost option should help to reach this group.”

Hellmann's Ketchup 

About 13% of all tomato crops are thrown away, simply because they aren’t red enough to go into ketchup. That’s crazy. Some farms even have special machines that check the colour and discard any that don’t fit the bill. It’s automated food waste. And it’s time we did something about it. That’s why we’ve made a special ketchup that uses red and green tomatoes. If you like it, let us know. Because frankly, no good tomato should go to waste.

Stop the Rot!

Stop the Rot! Is a current campaign calling on supermarkets to tackle food waste in their supply chains. UK supermarkets and businesses throw out over 7 million tonnes of food annually, before it gets to your shopping basket. That’s enough to lift all the hungry people in the UK out of food poverty.

Globally, if food waste was a country, it would be the third top carbon emitter after USA and China. Consumers are currently asked to do the lion's share of tackling food waste, but many businesses waste more in a day than a consumer does in a year.

Someone pays for these mountains of wasted food – be it you, victims of climate change, the person who can’t afford to eat, or the supermarket’s suppliers.Food is mainly wasted on farms and in factories, but hugely affected by retailer policy. Imagine spending all year growing potatoes, just to have them rejected for being the wrong shape or size. Or toiling to overproduce cauliflowers for fear of ever missing an order. One farmer had to plough 300,000 perfectly edible cabbages back into the field. These unjust practices need to be stopped. Hidden from view, the waste piles up and suppliers suffer in silence.