A food waste charity has welcomed the chancellor’s six-month extension of the scheme to help the poorest families but called on the government to enable them to become sustainable by scrapping ‘use by’ dates on fresh produce.
Affordable Food Stoke is one of Stoke City Council’s local partners in delivering the Household Support Fund (HSF) to the community in Blurton. In 2023, with funding support from the HSF, the charity provided free food to over 10,000 people, delivered over 1,000 emergency food parcels, fed nearly the same number at a Friday dining club, and provided free brews and toast to 1,700 people in its community lounge. Its Social Supermarket also allowed 79 members to buy 10 items a week, many of them high value, for a £4.50 membership fee.
But charity co-founder Nikki Barrett told The Stoke-on-Trent Lead that in January alone, Affordable Food Stoke threw away 600 kilos of food that could have been distributed to the community.
“We intercept food that is destined for landfill, collecting it from different supermarkets. Currently we are being given a lot of food that has a use by date on it. That legally means we can’t give it out after that date, so if we collect at 8.30pm we have to throw it out.”
The charity has launched a UK Government petition to remove use by dates which Barrett says she’s finding increasingly on fresh fruit and vegetables that are clearly not past their best. If the petition reaches 10,000 signatures the Government will respond.
In recent years retailers including Morrisons, Co-op and Marks & Spencer have removed the dates from some of their own-brand produce, replacing them with best-before dates that act as an indicator of quality. Best before dates also reduce the amount of food that goes to landfill as they don’t carry the same legal requirement to discard food after the date has passed.
Barrett said this change would allow the charity to become more sustainable – something she is increasingly focussed on as she anticipates the end of HSF funding. The six-month extension, announced by chancellor Jeremy Hunt last week is “six months more than anyone thought we were going to get,” she said.
“For us the funding allows us to access more food, to provide more food to the community, and to be able to open the doors up for longer. It’s a breath of relief for us. We don’t have to turn anybody away.”
In the previous 12 months Stoke City Council was awarded £5.3m from the HSF, distributed through partners providing relief to water charges, help with energy and fuel costs, food and other essentials.
Earlier this month Jane Ashworth joined 160 other council leaders in signing a Local Government Association (LGA) open letter to Hunt warning him that withdrawing funding would create a “cliff-edge” in provision and asking him to extend the funding for another year.
Simon Harris, CEO of Citizens Advice Staffordshire North & Stoke-on-Trent, which also received funding from the HSF, joined the LGA and others in expressing their disappointment at the chancellor’s short-term extension.
He told The Stoke-on-Trent Lead: “We welcome the extension of the household support fund as many local families are still struggling to heat their homes and put food on the table. It is disappointing that the extension is only for six months and will end just as we head back into winter. Ideally it should have been extended for at least a year.”
Barrett says the “hardest hitting” aspect of running Affordable Food Stoke is the increasing number of dual income families the charity is serving.
“They work 40 hours a week. Their wages haven’t increased significantly but their mortgage has. Their gas and electricity has. The cost of food has. And everything else that goes with it has. So what would have once been comfortable families are now in need of our services. We have nurses and midwives calling asking for help because they have run out of money and don’t get paid for another week.”
Sign Affordable Food Stoke’s petition to remove use by dates for fresh produce here
