They could do with getting their own cupboards in order.

I don’t find this news story, about how we all need to stop wasting food (thank you very much, Mr Prime Minister) sits terribly well with this one about the Grocer made to throw away Kiwis for being too small (thank you very much, EU). He wasn’t even to be allowed to give them to a school or hostel and would be fined if he did.

So, we have a country that wants to know what is in our bins (but not to the extent our bins are not allowed to be slightly open) but openly enforces throwing away food that has cost someone and the environment to import, not because it tastes bad or is dangerous but just because someone decided the optimum size for it, but it is better to show our children that waste is good in the face of bureaucracy rather than feeding someone hungry or undernourished. And heaven help we use it to feed children who might relish the opportunity for some good quality fruit for free, given the rising cost of food. (Hey, we’ve come full circle!)

When i was a supermarket manager, i was supposed to ensure that all the left over hot chicken was thrown away at 8pm every night (but i tended to leave shortly before! 😉 ), even if it was still within the 4 hours of cooking; i was supposed to make sure none of the students or single mothers who worked in my department took it home or ate it. Heaven forbid someone might get something for free and then feel sick and sue. It wasn’t stealing to chuck it in the bin, but it was stealing if they took it home after the shop had shut and no one had bought it, or could buy it. How messed up is that? And my brothers girlfriend works in a desperately under resourced and poor school where a vast proportion of her class come in without breakfast each day, consequently unable to concentrate and behave but the supermarkets in the incongruously well off area she teaches in wouldn’t be able to donate food that has gone passed its display by date (but not use by) to them.

Really, it can’t be any wonder we’ve got a generation of kids where part of it is growing up not knowing right from wrong when it comes to crime, violence and community spirit. We don’t seem to be setting a very good example from the top, Mr Brown et al.