Brown urges us to waste less food

[sparky]

Britons must stop wasting food, says Gordon Brown as he prepares to discuss rising prices at the G8 summit in Japan.]

BBC NEWS | Politics | 'Stop wasting food', urges Brown

Kinda obvious really, we do waste a whole lot of food.

[prashamk]

I have always believed that effective and optimum usage of food stuff can solve our current food crisis easily but the political blame game it the biggest obstacle in our path.

[forfismum]

How much food is eaten or spoiled by vermin ? Would 1/3 be a close guess?

[kepler]

If the supermarkets would sell smaller quantities at fair prices and 50% off instead of ‘buy one get one free‘, less food would be wasted.

[forfismum]

Most supermarkets have a reduced price section for stuff near the end of its sell-by date.I love the BOGOF idea as thats how you get your revenge on the supermarkets,buy the BOGOFs ,special offers and nothing else!

[prashamk]

How can that be called as "Revenge"? They don't do anything for loss. Maybe they aren't making profit but they won't sell anything for loss.

I don't know about western or european countries, but for super marketing in India, everything they have on their shelfs is being taken on credit from the companies producing it. Generally they have 60-90 days payment terms for whatever goods they sell. Moreover many products are returned to the producers if they can't sell it.

[Cricket Tragic]

Originally Posted by prashamk

How can that be called as "Revenge"? They don't do anything for loss. Maybe they aren't making profit but they won't sell anything for loss.

I don't know about western or european countries, but for super marketing in India, everything they have on their shelfs is being taken on credit from the companies producing it. Generally they have 60-90 days payment terms for whatever goods they sell. Moreover many products are returned to the producers if they can't sell it.

If it is a perishable, the supermarkets have 2 choices. It can be sold or it can be thrown out. The closer the product is to the use by date, the more likely it will have to be thrown out generating a loss for the supermarket. At this stage any price is a benefit, even if it is less than the wholesale price.

Supermarkets also deliberately sell products at a loss. It a practice called "loss leaders". It banks on normal human behaviour. Humans will be attracted into the supermarket for the loss leader and will be tempted to buy a whole lot of other stuff once there.

Supermarkets now have another marketting device. They provide a few cents off the price of fuel. People now buy more expensive products in supermarkets so that they can get a small discount on fuel. Typically, the supermarket makes a small loss on the fuel to its regular customers, but more than makes that up with the few cents extra on groceries.

Welcome to the wonderful world of marketting!

[prashamk]

That wonderful. But that's limited to western and developed countries. In India i know many companies that sell on BOGOF plan. Since years I am seeing this kind of marketing but then no one would make loss for years. There is a fruit juice manufacturer of Ladakh who has price of INR 80-90 (according to the flavour) but is offering BOGOF since last 2-3 years. Moreover there are other manufacturers like tropicana and dabur who are selling single packs at the same rate.

Above all the same offer is available through out the country, so its not that the offer is from the super market.

[forfismum]

cricket is correct there Prashamk,loss leaders are exactly that. The gimmick of 5 cent off fuel can only make a 2 Euro saving on a top-up.But if you plan your shopping you can beat them .Example,say you use 2 cans of X per week,you buy 100 cans at the cost of 50 and bugger having to pay full price for 12 months.OK this will not work for everyone because they may not have storage room etc etc moan moan whing whinge,but if you work at it you can build up quite a nice store cupboard and can cook with flair and panache at a reasonable cost.
The practice of not paying for many months is illegal here.I was offered a contract with a major store chain here [for their fire and safety training] some years back which I turned down as the first payment would not have been made for six months.As it turned out I got a similar contract with a group who paid strictly by the month.The second group also showed their honest credentials by being the first to give out long-life bags to replace plastic and set up a subsidiary which turned old plastic bags into fence posts !! The MD of that company was behind the levy on plastic bags in Ireland and now everyone is copying his idea.

[macgardener]

A few weeks ago there was a recall of lamb in Australia. We took our leg of lamb meant for Saturday night's dinner back for a refund and were told that that particular supermarket didn't get its supplies from the processing plant where the problem had occured but they were required to give refunds anyway. I don't know if they were just saying that in the hope that some people would change their minds about wanting to return the meat or if it was true, but we took the refund. Feeling bad about it, we rang the supermarket head office to find out more details and they didn't have a clue. I can't help thinking that better management and better tracking of their products would have limited the size of this recall. Horribly wasteful.

http://www.woolworths.com.au/resources/sdoc1494.pdf