I've got to admit I have a certain amount of sympathy with Ben Bradshaw's call to cut food and drink packaging. If it's not thick plastic wrapped around my broccoli, or pre-wrapped bananas, it's packets of tea with individually wrapped sachets. And did Sainsbury's honestly need 14 plastic shopping bags to load up last week's The Grocer 33 Online basket?
I may not dump food packaging at supermarket checkouts, as the minister of state for local environment provocatively suggested this week, but I have been known to give back the shopping bag when a cashier has automatically loaded up an individual item or two. "It's OK," I'll say, "I've got hands."
The problem is, I also have sympathy with retailers and food manufacturers. If you pop into a Tesco in Hungary, you can find strawberries piled up in pyramids. You'll never find those here. The consumers wouldn't stand for it. The strawberries are too easily damaged, and they want them to look perfect. And check out the photo of Bradshaw and Wrap's Jennie Price, surrounded by the packaged goods they are berating, in our analysis story (see p30). If they left the packaging at the counter for the cornflakes, tomato puree, crisps, muesli, pasta, salad, olives, jaffa cakes and pot noodles next to which they're posing, they would walk home with one mighty mess in their shopping bag.
This is a complex battle that's being waged. And the war on waste cuts both ways. In just 12 months, the government produced 3,621 pieces of legislation running to 98,600 pages - while the Wrap press dossier alone ran to 36 pages. Nor should the customer be absolved of all blame. And yes, while they have made progress, both retailers and suppliers need to continue to look at ways to cut, cut, cut.
I may not dump food packaging at supermarket checkouts, as the minister of state for local environment provocatively suggested this week, but I have been known to give back the shopping bag when a cashier has automatically loaded up an individual item or two. "It's OK," I'll say, "I've got hands."
The problem is, I also have sympathy with retailers and food manufacturers. If you pop into a Tesco in Hungary, you can find strawberries piled up in pyramids. You'll never find those here. The consumers wouldn't stand for it. The strawberries are too easily damaged, and they want them to look perfect. And check out the photo of Bradshaw and Wrap's Jennie Price, surrounded by the packaged goods they are berating, in our analysis story (see p30). If they left the packaging at the counter for the cornflakes, tomato puree, crisps, muesli, pasta, salad, olives, jaffa cakes and pot noodles next to which they're posing, they would walk home with one mighty mess in their shopping bag.
This is a complex battle that's being waged. And the war on waste cuts both ways. In just 12 months, the government produced 3,621 pieces of legislation running to 98,600 pages - while the Wrap press dossier alone ran to 36 pages. Nor should the customer be absolved of all blame. And yes, while they have made progress, both retailers and suppliers need to continue to look at ways to cut, cut, cut.
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