Hello. This is 6 Minute
English from BBC Learning
English. I'm Neil.
And I'm Sam.
Does this situation
sound familiar to you,
Sam? You reach into the
kitchen refrigerator looking
for something to eat, only
to find a brown lettuce,
a sad-looking cucumber,
and some two-week old fish,
all past its use-by date –
the date printed on the
food containers showing
how long it is safe to eat.
Oh, I'm guilty of wasting food,
Neil – me and many others.
According to the UN,
one third of the food we
grow ends up in the rubbish bin.
And it's not just food
that’s wasted – it's also
the resources used to
produce that food, things like
water, land and transport.
In this programme, we'll be
talking about food waste.
We'll meet the people
trying to stop us from throwing
good food away, and, as usual,
we'll be learning some
new vocabulary as well.
Here in the UK, big supermarkets
import food from abroad
for customers to enjoy
all year round.
Summer fruit like strawberries
and mangos are flown
in from tropical countries
and sold in winter,
increasing carbon emissions
as well as waste.
Yes, that's why you hear
the phrase, 'eat local, eat seasonal'
to encourage people to
buy and eat food which
has been grown in
their local area,
at that time of year.
So, Sam, my question is –
which of the following foods
can be grown in Britain
throughout the year? Is it:
a) strawberries? b) kale? or,
c) rhubarb?
Hmmm, it’s definitely not
strawberries 'cos they only
grow in summer, so I'll say b) kale.
OK, I'll reveal the answer
later. We've talked about
supermarkets in Britain,
but food waste is happening all
over the world. In Puerto Rico,
too, most people shop in
supermarkets, making it difficult
for farmers to choose what
to sell, and how much to
charge for their fruit
and vegetables.
Josefina Arcay is a farmer
who wanted to make it
easier for customers to
buy local food. She started
an online shop to connect
shoppers with farmers directly,
without the supermarkets.
Here Josefina explains her
project to Jo Mathys, reporter
for BBC World Service Programme,
People Fixing The World.
So Josefina, that's the farmer
who we heard earlier growing
those giant avocados, she
used to have to sell her
crops to these kind of middlemen.
We had a lot of... I don’t know how you call carreros...
it’s just people that have
a big truck and they will
just come by, and they will say,
'What do you have? Ohhh… that's
too expensive! Wooh… very expensive!
I want it half that price'.
So I didn't have any way of
controlling how I was going
to sell - it just depended
on these people coming.
And a lot of these carreros
are kind of commissioned by
the supermarkets. All this leads
to food waste because it's really
hard for farmers, like Josefina,
to predict which crops
they're going to be able to sell.
Josefina used to sell her
food to carreros or middlemen –
people who buy food
directly from the grower,
and make money by selling
it on to customers. Josefina
had no control over what to sell,
and a lot of her food went to waste.
Usually middlemen are commissioned –
they received a payment from
the supermarkets directly related
to the amount they sell.
But with Josefina's online shop,
farmers get a fair price for their food,
customers get high-quality,
fresh vegetables, and less
food is wasted.
Another problem is that
we throw away food after
we've bought it. In fact,
the UN estimates that
60 percent of food waste
happens in this way,
often because it's past
the use-by date and
might not be safe to eat.
But according to green designer,
Solveiga Pakstaite, these
use-by dates aren't always accurate,
something she discussed with
BBC World Service's,
People Fixing The World.
Well, food makers don't
know how people will keep
their products, so for instance,
they might forget to put
their groceries straight
in the fridge when they
get home. So what they do
is they calculate the
use-by date using a
very cautious estimate.
Food producers and supermarkets...
they kind of have to calculate
it to the worst-case scenario
because they don't know which
product is going to get
stored at the wrong temperature,
so they have to blanket apply
a shorter date to protect consumers.
Supermarkets set cautious use-by dates
for the worst-case scenario –
the worst case that could possibly
happen in a situation, for example,
someone getting sick and dying
of food poisoning.
In other words,
they blanket apply use-by dates.
Here, blanket is an adverb meaning
applied in the same way to everything,
even when there are
differences between those things.
Doing this protects customers
from bad food, but it also
means a lot of safe-to-eat food
gets thrown away.
Maybe it's best to stick to local,
seasonal food after all.
Anyway, Neil, what was the
answer to your question?
Right. I asked you which
food could be grown in
Britain all year round.
You said kale, which was...
the correct answer!
Unlike strawberries and rhubarb,
kale grows in all seasons, and
what's more, it’s good
for you too! OK, let's
recap the vocabulary we've
learned starting with use-by date –
the date until which
food is safe to eat.
The slogan eat local,
eat seasonal encourages
people to buy food which
has been grown locally
during the current season.
A middleman buys produce
directly from the producer,
before selling it on to
customers for a profit.
If he is commissioned,
he received a payment directly
related to the amount he sells.
The worst-case scenario
describes the most serious,
unpleasant thing that
could happen in a situation.
And finally, the adverb
blanket means applied in
the same uniform way to
everything, even when there
are differences between
those things. Bye for now!
Bye bye!