🚨 Something BIG is coming 🚨 In just one week — Tuesday 20th May — we’re unveiling a bold new chapter for Feedback. We're turning up the volume and rising with even more determination to fight for a just, sustainable food system. We can’t give away too much just yet... but get ready for something bolder, louder, and more energised than ever. This has been years in the making. ⏳ SEVEN DAYS TO GO. Watch this space. #BoldNewFeedback #Rising #Countdown (fb)

OPINION: “My foodbank is forced to throw away 20% of our donations,” reveals an anonymous food pantry worker for Metro writing about her harrowing experiences of dealing with supermarkets’ waste week after week after week. Hearing this exact kind of story is why we decided to ask workers at food aid organisations about their experiences of businesses unfairly passing on the burden of food waste for them to deal with. What we found revealed this problem is widespread, normalised and exhausting. “I took part in Feedback’s research, and am writing this because I want to sound the alarm on the reality of food distribution in this country,” writes the food pantry worker from Yorkshire. “Browning broccoli scattered with bashed up blueberries. Fizzy fruit salads. Wet, wilted bags of rocket and leaves,” she continues, explaining the kind of donations they receive for her church’s food pantry. “No, this isn’t a particularly disastrous online food shop. Dealing with this kind of unusable food – often in large quantities – is the true reality of working in a foodbank.” Our new research – based on the lived experience of food bank workers – reveals the sheer scale of the issue. We found that the burden of damaged, out-of-date or nutritionally inadequate food is being unacceptably passed on by supermarkets and retailers to food aid organisations to deal with. We also found that 91% of organisations have had to discard donated food, with the most common reason being that the food was damaged or inedible. Meanwhile, 85% of food aid workers reported feeling frustrated, angry or sad when they received donated food items that they can’t use or redistribute. We’re clear – as the anonymous food aid worker’s story shows – that redistribution isn’t the answer to tackling food waste or food poverty. (fb)