Too much and too little? Debates on surplus food redistribution

1 Introduction
Surplus is produced throughout food production <strong>and</strong>
distribution systems. Examples abound: agricultural
products are withdrawn from the market for price
stabilisation; dry goods packed in erroneous
packaging are removed from sale; unsold s<strong>and</strong>wiches
<strong>and</strong> fresh food are disposed of at the end of the day.
Most finds its way to l<strong>and</strong>fill - a costly form of waste
disposal with a negative environmental impact. Yet
<strong>much</strong> of this surplus food is perfectly edible <strong>and</strong> does
not need to be thrown away.
......wwhhiillee ffoooodd iiss ssoo
pplleennttiiffuull iitt iiss
ddiissccaarrddeedd,, ppeeooppllee
rreemmaaiinn hhuunnggrryy.. TThhuuss
aarriisseess aann eemmoottiivvee
ppaarraaddooxx:: wwaanntt aammiiddsstt
pplleennttyy..
At the same time, there are
many people suffering from
food poverty; people who
lack access, for whatever
reason, to an adequate food
supply. So while food is so
plentiful it is discarded,
people remain hungry. Thus
arises an emotive paradox: want amidst plenty. Within
this apparent paradox a practical solution has arisen:
methods of redistributing surplus food away from the
dustbin towards those in need. Such surplus food
redistribution schemes now exist all over the
industrialised world. But is this a solution to food
poverty? 1
When the Institute of Grocery Distribution was
setting up their surplus redistribution scheme,
Provision (now Grocery Aid), in 1991, Tim Lang, a
member of the National Food Alliance (NFA) working
party on food poverty, wrote a letter to its Director
to try <strong>and</strong> discourage the scheme. Basing his analysis
on similar schemes in Canada <strong>and</strong> the U.S., he wrote:
"Both critics <strong>and</strong> supporters agree that schemes which
were set up in the heat of the moment as crisis
solutions have ended up being institutionalised. The
net result is that problems the schemes sought to
eradicate are not resolved, even if some paper is
thrown over the cracks."
When the Director of the Canadian Association of
Food Banks (CAFB) visited Sustain (then the NFA),
over three years ago, she echoed these concerns. She
praised the UK movement to address food poverty,
which was based on a strong network of community
1
food projects. This contrasted sharply to the situation
in Canada, she said, where millions of Canadians now
relied on surplus food redistribution (via food banks).
Since this visit, Sustain has continued to develop
<strong>and</strong> exp<strong>and</strong> the food poverty network, 2 which
promotes <strong>and</strong> supports community food projects such
as food co-operatives, community cafes <strong>and</strong> cooking
clubs. It works with a range of partners to develop
appropriate policies to promote <strong>and</strong> support these
projects <strong>and</strong> to tackle the structural <strong>and</strong> cultural causes
of food poverty.
More recently, however, it has become aware that
the surplus food redistribution schemes (also termed
'food recovery') that the Director of the CAFB
cautioned against, are rapidly on the increase in the
UK. There is a surprisingly high number of food
projects that receive free food from such schemes on
the food <strong>and</strong> low income database of the food
poverty network. Crisis FareShare, established to
collect <strong>and</strong> distribute surplus foods from retailers to
homeless people in London, is now developing a
franchise scheme to operate in other cities. Grocery
Aid (formerly Provision), the grocery industry's project
to 'channel surplus food to those in need', is looking
at ways of making its current distribution systems
more efficient with a view to exp<strong>and</strong>ing in the future.
New, more effective ways of distributing the fruit <strong>and</strong>
vegetables withdrawn by the government's
Intervention Board are being piloted, a
recommendation of the 1998 Inequalities in Health
(Acheson) Report. And the retail industry, at first a
reluctant partner, is now keen to take an active role
Food poverty can be defined in various ways. 1 Here it is
defined as 'the inability to acquire or consume an adequate
quality or sufficient quantity of food in socially acceptable
ways, or the uncertainty that one will be able to do so'. In
the United States, the term food insecurity, with a similar
definition, is used more often. It is defined as the 'limited
or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate <strong>and</strong> safe
foods or limited <strong>and</strong> uncertain ability to acquire acceptable
foods in socially acceptable ways'. It includes hunger, 'the
uneasy or painful sensation caused by lack of food. The
recurrent <strong>and</strong> involuntary lack of access to food'.
Published by Sustain: The alliance for better food <strong>and</strong> farming - 2000 1