City Harvest, the food charity focused on rescuing surplus food and distributing it to people facing food insecurity, has been awarded new funding to help UK farmers reduce farm gate waste, aka ‘the national waste crop’.
It is widely acknowledged that the UK’s fresh produce is the best in the world, grown with great care and expertise. The national waste crop is all the food produced by farms but fails retailer specifications and currently gets sent to anaerobic digestion or used as animal feed when it could be given to people facing food poverty.
This crop is worth millions of pounds annually with WRAP (The Waste and Resources Action Programme) estimating that around 3.6 million tonnes of food are wasted or go surplus each year. This wasted and surplus food, if sold at market value, would be worth approximately £1.2 billion. WRAP’s research highlights the significant financial, environmental, and efficiency benefits of addressing food waste in primary production (i.e. farms).
Sarah Calcutt, CEO, City Harvest says, “As both a farmer and CEO of a food redistribution charity, I know more than most how much love is invested into growing crops. Nothing makes a grower happier than to see their food enjoyed, providing happiness and nourishment. An ugly apple or a carrot with a bump is still every bit as nutritious and delicious as any other apple or carrot. It is a matter of national pride and efficiency that we make better use of what our incredible British farmers produce.”
Farmers will be able to request a free pick-up through the City Harvest website, as an extension of their Harvest for Hunger scheme.
The new funding has been awarded by the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) and will allow City Harvest to expand its depot and fleet efficiency, and to expand its volunteer programme. This will ensure more food can be kept fresher for longer and reaching more people.
Waste Minister Mary Creagh says: “This Government’s Plan for Change is acting on food poverty and tackling Britain’s throwaway culture, ensuring more good food ends up on plates and not in bins.
“I am delighted to see this support go to 12 outstanding redistribution charities – including City Harvest, who will kickstart their new ‘Harvest for Hunger’ programme, boosting the amount of food they can collect from farm gates and offer to those in our society who need it.”
Sarah Calcutt, a sixth-generation apple farmer, continues: “This new funding will allow us to increase the amount of food we pick-up directly from farms, reduce farm costs and increase further the amount of fresh food we can offer our customers.”
“We grow a frankly amazing range of fruits and veg in this country, from berries to spuds and brassicas to salads; but the truth is, as any farmer will testify, that a significant percentage of the food we grow will go to waste; and the reasons for this waste are often around shape and size not meeting retailer specifications rather than anything to do with health or nutrition.
“The ‘national waste crop’ varies each year but is certainly in the millions of tonnes annually, with a value of many tens of millions of pounds. This new funding will allow us to get to more farms and be their ‘waste picker-uppers’, take their surplus food and re-distribute more of it across myriad food banks, food charities and community hubs helping more people get the access to fresh healthy food they may otherwise not ever have.
“Fresh food should be a basic right of everyone in Britain and the growth of the Harvest for Hunger scheme takes us another step closer to making that a reality”
Research from City Harvest’s own ‘People Value report’ 2023 shows that fresh food is a luxury for millions with a third of food is going to waste, whilst around 20% of the population are in need of support when it comes to food.
The need for food redistribution in London particularly is now more important than ever, with poor health becoming a generational issue for people struggling to access fresh food from birth. Food inflation remains at high levels, with four million people going hungry, 5.7 million people skipping meals and 66% of people having to eat less nutritious food as a result of high food prices.
