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Sod Brexit when do we shoot these fuckers?

Supermarkets are encouraging families to waste £700 a year on food, according to MPs, as the Government launches an inquiry into how the UK is wasting £16 billion a year on uneaten produce.

Politicians on the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (EFRA) Committee condemned supermarkets for “pushing food people don’t need” to maximize profits, suggesting the inquiry could lead to a possible crackdown on food pricing strategies which encourage people to buy produce in large volumes.

Government should micromanage food prices now, eh?

Neil Parrish, Conservative MP and Chairman of the Committee, told the Telegraph that MPs plan to use the inquiry to “push down hard on” retailers.

He said: “As a nation there are more people living alone then ever before, but shops haven’t caught up with this. They should not be pushing food people don’t need – especially if its close to being out of date. It might be convenient for supermarkets to sell fresh food in large quantities but it is not always very convenient for customers, so this needs to change.”

What’s the point of having a Tory party if they elect gibbering idiots like that?

53 thoughts on “Sod Brexit when do we shoot these fuckers?”

  1. Surely this is the sort of thing that’s solved by the market. Customer doesn’t like product, customer buys product from rival, supplier changes product to get customer back.

  2. “He said: “As a nation there are more people living alone then ever before, but shops haven’t caught up with this. “

    Then what the hell are all those ‘ready meals for one’ in every supermarket chiller isle..?

  3. Don’t worry, once Saint Theresa’s got her consumer champions and trade unions on the company boards, this kind of pandering to consumers and unbridled free market extremism will be a thing of the past.

    Higher prices set by the government and stakeholder control will soon sort everything out.

  4. “According to the Government more than half of this waste, or £16bn worth of food equivalent to £700 per household, is food which has been bought by consumers and thrown in the bin.”

    Are these the usual misleading WRAP figures again? Is this actually ‘food’ or is a significant proportion potato peelings and banana skin?

  5. No no no!. Neil Parrish MP is quite right, this cheap price scam has got to stop, as has the free car-parking rip off. And that sell-by date con is just a fucking outrage.

  6. I disagree with Tim here , as I think hanging more suitable than firing squad – and am horrified that the multi-person gallows which will be particularly needed post Brexit seems to have been hit by further delays….

  7. BiND, I’m just waiting for some smartarse to come along and tell us that potato peelings cause cancer of the gentleman’s sausage or some such drivel.

  8. They should not be pushing food people don’t need – especially if its close to being out of date.

    I am guessing here that “pushing” means discounting, because it is going out of date

    Progressives moan about food waste.
    Shops discount food nearing its use-by date so it is sold and consumed, i.e. not wasted.
    Progressives moan about food not being wasted.

  9. When oh when are we going to stop the blatant consumer abuse of bargain bins full of crap movies at very low prices? Just last week the shop forced me to purchase a rubbish action movie with hopeless special effects for 50p called The Terminatorix 4.

    There were no community safety wardens around to stop me buying it, and it was freely available near the checkout where children could see it. The government must act NOW.

  10. The politicians are desperate to get back to the pointless nannying tinkering which was their staple pre-Brexit.

    It’s like an earthquake levelled a city, but the traffic wardens are still out in full uniform trying to put tickets on wrecked cars.

  11. Expect lots of bullshit new nannying in the Commons to take the focus off Brexit.

    I daresay Theresa will want to be remembered for introducing the Nordic Model prostitution laws for a start.

  12. @Rob

    ‘Progressives moan about food waste.
    Shops discount food nearing its use-by date so it is sold and consumed, i.e. not wasted.
    Progressives moan about food not being wasted.’

    Fucking hell, are you that thick Rob?

    There are 60 million people in the UK. Yes?

    Each person needs to eat (and should eat) no more than two potatoes each, each week. Yes?

    All we need to do is devise a system where 120 million potatoes are made available to consumers each week, and a law to force them to actually consume them, and a machinery to enforce the law, and punishment for those who fail to eat their share, or attempt the black market trade of potatoes, and we’re golden.

    Call it the Potato Retail Index for Consumption Knowledge and Sales. Ironman can chair it.

    We then create a further body to oversee apples (the Trans World Apple Trade System – Arnald’s your man there) – and so on.

    FFS it’s not hard.

  13. Van_Patten said: “the multi-person gallows which will be particularly needed post Brexit seems to have been hit by further delays….”

    As a nation there are more people needing to be strung up than ever before but gallows manufacturers haven’t caught up with this. They should not be pushing single person gallows when there are so many candidates for the drop. We need a gallows tsar!

  14. Ian B, I really don’t want to see the words ‘Nordic’, ‘model’, ‘prostitution’ and ‘Teresa May’ strung together in a sentence. Certainly not when I mostly read around breakfast time!

  15. Interested, I don’t want potatoes. I want turnips.

    And what about the people who are potato-intolerant?

  16. And what about the people who are potato-intolerant?

    They’ll just have to like it or lump it. There’s no room for individuality in the New World Order.

  17. I wonder whether the particular flavour of Brexit we get means we will end up with more or less of this paternalistic fuckwittery than our EU cousins.

  18. @Crun

    Easy. The Turnip Waste Agreement Tariff Standards will apply.

    Parsnip-Individual Local Living Organisation for Cooperation and Knowledge and Sales will correctly allocate parsnip rations.

    There are, of course, other root veg. We don’t need always to reinvent the wheel. For instance, I would be quite happy simply to adopt the Carrot United Nations Terms.

    Swedes we will just ban.

  19. “Swedes we will just ban.”

    Except for Assange, who will be welcomed with open arms after his imprisonment by the neo-fascist regime.

  20. “What’s the point of having a Tory party”

    We don’t have a Tory party. We just have the blue wing of the establishment party.

  21. I wonder whether the particular flavour of Brexit we get means we will end up with more or less of this paternalistic fuckwittery than our EU cousins.

    Indeed. As I put it myself:

    I am also not convinced Brexit will result in pettyfogging EU regulations being torn up: we were the only country to employ armies of people in hi-viz vests bearing clipboards to ensure they were being followed to the letter, and it’s not like any of the current crop of politicians from any party believe in light regulation and small government. I can expect a huge lobbying effort being made to recreate all those “essential” EU regulations in a post-EU Britain, to be managed by sprawling government bureaucracies crammed full of civil servants. “Just think of all the jobs it will create!” will be the cry, once “Think of the children!” has faded.

  22. May’s one nation/Nu Labour speech was utterly depressing; she will accelerate Britain’s transformation into the nation of Bottom Inspectors.

  23. Dear Mr Worstall

    Mr Parish’s website: http://www.neilparish.co.uk/

    Like most MPs, he has very little real work to do.

    @Tim Newman July 12, 2016 at 12:08 pm

    ” “Just think of all the jobs it will create!” will be the cry,”

    As our host points out, jobs are a cost. Government is the major driver of decreasing productivity in the land, not only in government, but also its pervasive and corrosive impact on the economy.

    Solutions on how ordinary folk can by-pass government at every level are needed. Waiting for government to solve the problem of too much government is like waiting for Godot without the excitement.

    DP

  24. Bloke in North Dorset

    I suspect that all the EU regulations will get grandfathered in to whatever legislation is passed to leave the EU.

    But as Tim has pointed out, our bureaucrats and MPs can’t stand behind the EU instead of defending them.

  25. “pushing food people don’t need”

    Um, a lot of the world (thankfully less so now) have more of an issue with there not being enough food in the first place. So we can safely assign this issue to Twatter as #firstworldprobems 🙂

  26. I really don’t want to see the words ‘Nordic’, ‘model’, ‘prostitution’ and ‘Teresa May’ strung together in a sentence.

    No, that one’s okay. It’s “Theresa May” you’d need to put the eyeball bleach in the fridge in preparation for. Which may have been bis’s point.

  27. BiND: all it needs is a 1-liner in the repeal of the EC act: “all EU directives and regulations now become advisory rather than mandatory”. Not much of it actually needs regulating. Common Sense on the usefulness of common standards should take care of most of any harmonisation required. And perhaps we can go back to Red-Yellow-Blue cables for 3-phase power instead of the stupid brown-grey-black we’re now stuck with.

  28. jesus fucking christ don’t tell me all y’all voted brexit only to discover our idiot politicians are no better then Eurocrats. Possibly worse.

    who could have seen that coming.

  29. Bloke in North Dorset

    TG,

    I’m not sure that they can all be repealed, safely, and it will require too much effort to identify the safety critical ones, hence my comment.

    I agree on wiring, total nonsense that colour scheme, but that doesn’t mean no regulation.

  30. jesus fucking christ don’t tell me all y’all voted brexit only to discover our idiot politicians are no better then Eurocrats. Possibly worse.

    Sigh. Here we go again.

    We can get rid of ours at the ballot box

  31. A large portion of my food waste is specifically because of the store’s packaging choices.

    Most recipes that use ground beef call for 1 pound(close enough to 500g for our purposes) yet stores commonly sell ground beef in 1.5, 2.5 and 3.5 pound(I won’t hurt anyone’s brains by using pounds and ounces) packages. The leftover half pound often goes bad if I don’t plan 3 meals and buy two packages. It is easy to see why the store sells ground meat in odd sized quantities.

    Produce is becoming unbuyable, due to package size, at my local store. I enjoy having a jalapeno when I make tacos yet they are sold in packages of 7. By making homemade salsa and guacamole I can use a second jalapeno. Normally 4-5 end up in the compost heap. Recently lemons have gone from being sold individually to being sold in a bag of, I think, 8. My main reason to purchase a lemon is to have fresh lemon zest. The juice normally goes into a glass of lemonaide to reduce waste. Obviously buying 8 lemons when I will only use 1 will result in waste.

    The problem is easy to identify and does not require government intervention. When loose lemons disappeared I asked for the store manager. I pointed out my issue and said in no uncertain terms that if I could not buy a single lemon on my next visit I would switch to the upscale store 4 times as far away for all of my purchases. Sure enough on my next visit loose lemons were back on the shelf.

    One final point I would like to raise is that ‘conservative’ politicians seem to be worse for stupid socialist policies. The worst wage and price controls, I know of, in US history happened under Nixon.

  32. @Liberal Yank

    Over here on the other side of the pond we have these new fangled machines called “Freezers” into which one may place fresh and cooked food which is then preserved in an edible state for many months or years.

    Do you colonials not have these machines in your Americaland?

    P

  33. I like the idea of Tractor Gent on making all regulations advisory. It reminds of my days reading the Highway Code which is 3/4ths advisory, but a breach could be counted against you in court if something goes wrong. Or something like that.

  34. ‘Supermarkets’ job is to sell as much produce as possible, but sometimes buying fresh food in bulk is wasteful. It must be bought in sensible portions to avoid waste’

    A food purchasing permit should be required. It will state whether one can buy in bulk. Customers must also file meal plans for the next week to explain how each purchase will be used – fully used. If the buyer can’t explain, no sale. And no pudding if you don’t eat your meat.

  35. “Customers must also file meal plans for the next week”

    Imperialist neo-liberal! Comrade, do you not think our wise and brave government could plan these meals instead, and release our citizens to enjoy more freedom?

    Perhaps you should be liquidated.

  36. Pcar.,

    Yes we have freezers. Residential and commercial freezes do not reach the temperatures(-196C) necessary to flash freeze produce. Why should I have to buy an industrial freezer for 7 lemons or 5 jalapenos when it is easier to just buy what I actually need?

    Additionally if I wanted frozen produce I would buy it that way.

  37. Rob is right! The State could plan the meals for everyone, then deliver the exact right amount of food to all! Perfect efficiency, unlike that capitalist system that just produces abundance, forcing people to make choices – frequently incorrect choices.

  38. @ Liberal Yank
    As you deduced the solution is called “competition” or “a market economy”. I live in a “market town” which has a weekly market (I grew up in a larger town which had two market days a week). In theory this means stalls competing against each other (and did so in my childhood – half-a-dozen butchers, five fruit-and-veg stalls, 3 fish stalls, 3 cheese stalls …) but nowadays it’s one of each competing against Tesco and Walmart’s ASDA subsidiary. So I buy as much or as little (well, to the nearest whole fruit or veg or half-cucumber) as I need and they never object to my buying “Russett” apples or Conference pears in twos when they only quote a price for five.

  39. john77,

    Sales always seem to have a quantity of 2+ anymore. The local store normally charges the same price no matter how many I buy. If I go to the upscale grocer I have to buy the exact quantity to get the deal. They also raise the single price for the duration of the sale. After paying $1.19 for a single lemon when three were a $1 I stopped shopping there completely. I had already stopped buying meat after they began dying it.

    As you can tell my threat to shop at another store was just hot air. Despite being in a market with 1 million+ customers we basically have 3 choices in full service grocers. There are only 2 choices within a 20 minute drive. If I didn’t have a car I would be limited to 1 choice. Aldi’s is the only store worth driving for but it isn’t a good option when I only want a few things. The next time I move I will be looking for property near the Strip District. Having dozens of smaller stores withing blocks of each other leads to the best quality and prices.

  40. ‘Having dozens of smaller stores withing blocks of each other leads to the best quality and prices.’

    Or just being near a Walmart.

  41. Walmart also dyed their meat at one point. I haven’t bothered to actually shop at a Walmart in decades thanks to the 40+ minute checkout lines so I can not accurately judge their pricing structure.

  42. LibYank: “Residential and commercial freezes do not reach the temperatures(-196C) necessary to flash freeze produce. “

    What absolute bollocks! It’s perfectly acceptable quality to freeze cut lemons (for one’s gin & tonic) or leftover mince.

  43. When do we shoot these fuckers?

    “You can take the UK out of the EU, …” You know the rest.

  44. that’s right, you can choose either giant douche or turd sandwich

    Yes, but they would be our giant douches or turd sandwiches.

  45. We are at that awkward stage. It’s too late to work within the system, but too early to shoot the bastards.” – h/t Claire Wolfe

  46. @JuliaM, July 13, 2016 at 7:58 am

    LibYank: “Residential and commercial freezes do not reach the temperatures(-196C) necessary to flash freeze produce. “

    What absolute bollocks! It’s perfectly acceptable quality to freeze cut lemons (for one’s gin & tonic) or leftover mince.

    Juilia, +1

    I worked in a freezer plant one summer when a student. The blast freezers for peas etc were around -30C and we had to regularly go in and rake the peas as they often clumped.

    Bread, pet-food offal etc all went straight into the freezer warehouses.

    Fragile broccoli, cauliflower, berries etc were frozen by passing though a unit where they were sprayed with liquid nitrogen then glazed.

    @LibYank,
    If you choose not to freeze excess purchased produce that’s your choice, but don’t moan about it.

    P

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