UK Consumers now buy, waste less food than before the recession

Consumers in the UK are spending less on buying less food than they had been for 10 years, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

Food sales had been increasingly rising for a generation before the financial crash. According to Deborah Orr writing in The Guardian, the rise of food banks served to confirm that people in the UK were going hungry, even as she admitted to the possibility of people buying so much food that they later threw away (See: London charities feed 5,000 to prove good food need not be wasted).

Before the crash, in 2005, figures obtained from different sources pointed to wastage in the UK of between 30 per cent and 40 per cent of all the food that had been brought or grown, at a cost of anything between £8 billion and £16 billion each year. Much of the waste was due to the rigid and controlling processes of the industry, but a lot of it was just people buying more foodstuff than they were going to use and (See: Cutting waste: UK to make food labelling less stringent).

A report from Prudential insurance of a survey around that time, of 1,000 households, found that 61 per cent threw out at least one bag of prepared salad a week, as they had bought from the store. A similar number junked uneaten bread and fruit, while nearly that many discarding milk, cheese and meat.

Meanwhile, Tesco said up to 150 job losses at the Tesco distribution centre at Magor in Monmouthshire would not involve compulsory redundancy. According to the supermarket group a 90-day consultation with unions had led to some staff taking voluntary redundancy while others had agreed to relocate.

The supermarket announced the site, employed  800, in February.

A number of staff had taken jobs at new distribution centres in Reading and Dagenham.

The decision had been described as "absolutely devastating", by shop workers union Usdaw.

According to a Tesco spokesperson, the company was pleased that its consultation with colleagues and Usdaw at Magor had come to a positive conclusion, with no colleagues facing compulsory redundancy.

According to a Usdaw spokesperson, whilst any redundancy announcement was disappointing it was no doubt a relief for the staff that this particular one had been resolved through volunteers and that there would be no compulsory redundancies.