Back in my days at the Fairtrade Foundation, I spoke to a farmer when we were launching Fairtrade bananas who was aghast that, after all his work to meet high environmental standards, his bananas would be put in a plastic bag to sell in a UK supermarket. It was quite literally bananas!
All these years later, if it is naked fruit and single veggies you are after, the choice is still quite restricted. As you rush down the fruit and veg aisle, picking up the shopping, so much fresh produce comes pre-packaged – in fact only around 19% is sold loose. I get it, it's easier to handle, there is less store waste, simpler production lines and tidier shelves. But we’re all paying the price. Some 30% of fresh vegetables and salad we buy is thrown away – often because we’ve picked up that plastic bag of potatoes, cannot eat them all in time and they go off.
WRAP’s report from 2022, bringing together citizen and data analysis for the first time, showed the impact on household food waste of people buying more than they need - especially for smaller households - when only packed fruit and vegetables are available. That’s why we launched our Choose What you’ll Use campaign with celebrity chef Gino D’Campo earlier this year. If we enable people to choose what they will use, food waste will go down – along with plastic pollution. Single use packaging like this is often hard to recycle, uses virgin fossil fuels and means we buy more than we need. We estimate that a household of four spends £1000 a year on food that gets thrown away.
This Recycle Week, we are releasing new research undertaken in collaboration with Policy Connect, a cross party think tank, that calls for a ban on packaging for 21 items, that clearly shows that legislation is needed. Sometimes you need a carrot (bought loose of course) and a stick, for a successful outcome.
Through our work with the food and drink sector, who know their onions, we have identified the 21 fruit and veg from apples and pears to potatoes which could be liberated from packaging and sold loose on the shelves.
It should prove popular: 64% of us say we prefer to buy loose. But then we don't always put that into practice in the store. So, until regulation does come into force, let’s support companies who offer loose fruit and veg, and buy it when it’s offered - shopping like our nan back in the day when everyone chose what they wanted in the grocery store. And companies can help us too: making it easy to see the price comparisons, or to weigh our produce. So, if it takes two to tango, it takes three to shift to loose – we must move in tandem, each one taking a step that encourages the other to move as well. The final step in the dance is the regulation with a timeline, creating a level playing field and a mandate to change.
The retail industry recognise the importance of this change – but they need government policy to help make it happen. Indeed - so many companies also sell across Europe and are used to different systems. For example, 50% of fresh produce is sold loose in Europe.
Such changes always look tough at first but then quickly become the norm. For example, when we changed the date labels on dairy from ‘Use By’ to ‘Best Before’ - it seemed a big concern at first - but the industry got behind it at speed. And the likes of Arla and Morrisons ran with the idea and haven’t looked back, with others following suit since. Likewise, if we think back to the work by City to Sea and others on cotton buds and plastic stirrers, there was skepticism, and voluntary action by companies ready to move first but legislation was an integral part of the solution.
This will be hard, probably one of the biggest changes in the retail landscape in a while. But it is the right thing to do.
It is another step towards our mission at WRAP of making circular living commonplace in every home and every board room. Soon we will all think it was bananas to wrap fresh produce in plastic and I can’t wait to tell that to the banana farmer!