We need to talk about nitrogen. You weren’t expecting that were you? 

In recent years you’ve probably heard much more about carbon, and its impact on our climate. But our excess use of nitrogen fertilisers (in the global north) has also pushed us beyond a ‘safe operating space for humanity’.

The fertiliser industry has sold us a narrative that they ‘feed the world’, and portray their product as an agri-business success story. 

But Foodrise has taken a deep dive into this murky industry, and our upcoming report tells a different – and worrying – story.  

We expose how this harmful industry, which has been almost entirely unaccountable, has been pushing a product with a huge environmental, social and economic cost for humanity.

We show how the harms of human-made nitrogen have long been known, but the fertiliser industry has continued to increase production, make huge profits, capture public policy and go about its business largely unquestioned and unchallenged.  

For the first time, our report will name the companies responsible and identify their role in derailing efforts to tackle the nitrogen crisis, by seeking to distract from their environmental impacts and peddling myths about their benefits.  

This crisis is also first and foremost a crisis of the food system. Foodrise reveals how the overproduction and overuse of nitrogen fertilisers have powered the industrialisation of our food system, including the excessive production of meat and dairy, which is harming people’s health and driving climate change and biodiversity loss.  

But this crisis can be solved by transforming what we grow and what we eat.  

In line with the findings of the 2025 EAT-Lancet report, Foodrise offers recommendations for our political leaders and policy makers to finally fix our nitrogen problem.  

It is high time that the fertiliser industry was held to account. Urgent action is needed for people and planet. Find the full details in our upcoming report on the harms of the fertiliser industry. 

Our two sister reports show why the current, corporate-led approach to creating a better food system will fail – and highlight a better alternative.

Supermarkets are fundamentally unfit to deliver a food system that works for people, farmers, and the planet. But our two reports, Profit over Purpose: Why supermarkets will make the Food Strategy fail and Purpose over Profit: How alternative food retail can make the Food Strategy a success, highlight how alternative models could succeed where supermarkets fail. 

Key findings 

• The government’s food strategy is relying on supermarkets and other industry to shape our diets 

• Supermarkets’ need to maximise profit is driving this strategy towards climate breakdown, species extinction, and jeopardising food security 

• Creating a food system that works for people and the planet means rebalancing power, by dismantling and replacing supermarkets with local alternatives 

What’s the problem? 

Supermarkets now control over 96% of Britain’s food retail. But their near-monopoly comes at a huge cost. 

Foodrise’s report Profit over Purpose: Why supermarkets will make the food strategy fail reveals how supermarkets are structurally bound to maximise profit for shareholders, regardless of the consequences for farmers, public health or the environment. 

The findings expose a litany of harms: 

• Squeezing British farmers while supermarket CEOs take home salaries in the millions. 

• Undermining public health by prioritising cheap junk food over affordable fresh produce. 

• Driving climate breakdown, food waste, and biodiversity loss. 

• Locking households into a cost-of-living crisis where saving money trumps eating healthily. 

Government hopes that big retailers will drive progress towards a better food system is wishful thinking at best, delusional at worst. 

Our solutions 

In our companion report, Purpose over Profit: How alternative food retail can make the food strategy a success, we highlight the power of alternative food retail.  

From cooperatives and employee-owned shops to veg delivery vans and farm shops, there’s a patchwork of small organisations that put people first. 

Foodrise’s new YouGov polling shows strong public appetite for change, with 54% of people saying supermarkets should be run as cooperatives or employee-owned businesses – compared with just 16% preferring private companies. 

People want public purpose, not private profits. 

Across the UK, grassroots and community-owned initiatives are already proving what’s possible: 

• Deliver healthier diets, with increased fruit and veg intake. 

• Provide farmers with three times more income than supermarket supply chains. 

• Cut food waste and boost access to local, sustainable produce. 

Foodrise is calling for urgent government support to supercharge these alternatives that put people first – including investment in regional food hubs, fruit and veg prescriptions, and fairer tax treatment for independent retailers. 

What the experts say 

“Our food system is primarily controlled by ten profit-driven supermarkets, and the consequences are devastating for farmers, communities and the planet,” says Carina Millstone, Executive Director of Foodrise. “But our new data shows the public want something different: worker-owned food shops that put people and the environment ahead of profits. 

The government’s food strategy will fail unless it tackles supermarket dominance head-on and gives grassroots alternatives the recognition and support they deserve.” 

Our demands 

We’re calling on the government to recognise that the current ownership structures of UK supermarkets cannot support the action needed to achieve the priority outcomes of the food strategy, and instead back the solutions already taking root in our communities: 

• A new Food Chain Law to regulate supermarkets, stop below-cost selling and guarantee fair pay for farmers. 

• Salt and sugar tax revenues ring-fenced to lower the cost of healthy food. 

• Rules requiring large retailers to ensure half of protein sales are plant-based by 2030. 

• Investment and policy backing for independent, community-led food retail. 

Read the reports 

Profit over Purpose: Why supermarkets will make the food strategy fail

Purpose over Profit: How alternative food retail can make the food strategy a success

We’re delighted to share that we’ve been working on a new innovative research project in collaboration with researchers at Leiden University and funded by Tiny Beam. Tiny Beam’s grant has enabled Foodrise to commission vital research working with Christina Drotenko, PhD student at Leiden University, under supervision of Prof Paul Behrens (British Academy Global Professor at Oxford Martin School), Prof Oliver Taherzadeh (Assistant Professor at Leiden University) and Prof Laura Scherer (Associate professor at Leiden University). 

Foodrise applied for the grant to examine the land use of animal agriculture, to shed light on the  environmental impacts of the overproduction and overconsumption of meat and dairy. We can’t give away further details of the research just yet – but watch this space! 

Collaboration with academics has always been important to Foodrise’s work, forming the basis for many of our previous reports on subjects ranging from sugar to biomethane, animal feed to aquaculture. We’re really pleased to continue this tradition, collaborating with the excellent Leiden University team and enabled by Tiny Beam. 

The grant has allowed us to deepen our understanding of the land use impacts of livestock production, and its implications for international justice. We look forward to sharing more later this year.

Imagine a world where decisions aren’t just made with humans in mind — but also informed by the living world. Where important choices about the land are made in dialogue with rivers, trees, birds, and soil…

That’s the vision I held earlier this year at Foodrise, as we prepared our response to the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs’s (Defra) long-awaited Land Use Framework for England ahead of setting its vision and strategy. 

When Defra finally invited contributions to its new framework, we welcomed the opportunity. But while there was much to welcome in the framework, I was struck – though not surprised – by its deeply human-centred lens. It was all about producing food for humans, providing housing for humans, protecting ecosystems for humans. 

For whom? Always, and only, for humans. 

At a time when ecosystems are collapsing and species are disappearing, I was dismayed that the government department responsible for the environment and rural life wasn’t putting the needs of other species front and centre. 

The living world was framed as a service provider – a backdrop and resource. But when policy only reflects human interests and economic needs, the results are catastrophic to the ecological systems we rely on. 

If Defra isn’t for the curlew, the barn owl, the river, the ash and the oak — who in government is? 

That is why we partnered with Moral Imaginations and wyrd futures to host an Interspecies Council. This process, developed by Moral Imaginations, invites more-than-human voices into the policy-making conversation. It recognises the simple truth: humans are not separate from nature, but deeply embedded within it. Our health, food systems, futures and stories are bound to the lands, waters, and beings we live alongside. 

So in April, 35 beings — from oak to river, earthworm to pig, mayfly to moss — gathered in London. Represented by human participants in deep listening and embodied storytelling, each species shared what it needed from the land, and from us. 

What emerged was a strong cry for help. Frustration. Outrage. 

The species called for a transformation in how Defra understands and governs land. They urged a shift from viewing land as a resource to recognising it as a relationship. They called for a move away from notions of land ownership to responsibility; from short to longer term and multiple time scales; and from governing and stewarding to being in partnership with the living world. For many of us in the room, the process was extremely moving. 

From that council, we crafted a formal response to the Land Use Framework drawn entirely from the voices of the species and submitted it to Defra. In June, I had the privilege of sharing this work at the British Ecological Symposium on Nature, Farming and Food, where it sparked curiosity and conversation.

Will Defra listen to the voice of earthworm? Of river? Of oak? 

The answer is we don’t yet know. The final Land Use Framework is expected this Autumn. But we’ve already heard on the grapevine that our response stood out and sparked conversations among civil servants working on this. 

But I hope the government takes heed of earthworm’s wisdom, before it’s too late. As the proverb goes: “The cut worm forgives the plough, but is increasingly running out of the capacity to forgive.” Meaning even the most forgiving of entities has its limits.  

Below, you’ll find our case study and a participant video which offers a broader reflection on what we heard, what we felt, and what we now carry forward. My hope is that it inspires others to try similar approaches and demonstrates that governance can centre not just human life, but all life. 

— Carina, Executive Director, Foodrise

Click here to read the Case Study.

Following the publication of our Ocean Takeover report, we feature a guest blog by Fay Orfanidou, a key member of Aktaia – The Greek Alliance for the Protection of the Marine Environment from Aquaculture, about community resistance to industrial fish farming in Poros, Greece.

The island I call home, Poros, is one of the most beautiful places on the planet. Just an hour from Athens by ferry, it holds many delights that are enjoyed in equal measure by my neighbours and the tourists who holiday here.

Its biggest delight by far is the dazzling blue of the Saronic Gulf, visible from almost everywhere on the island, including the ancient Temple of Poseidon, Greek god of the ocean. What would Poseidon, master of the seas, make of the threat posed to Poros and so many other Greek islands by the encroachment of intensive fish farms along our stunning coastlines, I wonder?

The organisation I am part of, Aktaia, is a panhellenic alliance comprised of citizen groups, non-profit organisations, scientists and individuals from over 20 communities across Greece. Together, we stand united in opposition to the disastrous proposal to expand industrial fish farming 24-fold along our coasts, which presents an urgent and severe threat to our precious environment, local livelihoods, wild fish populations, and the centuries-old way of life cherished by both residents and visitors.

Photo credit – Tasos Rodis (and cover image)

As is described in Ocean Takeover, the unchecked growth of intensive fish farming across Greece and indeed right across the Mediterranean Basin risks forever altering the natural beauty and balance that have defined these coastal areas for generations. The waste from fish farms is suffocating the Posidonia meadows – the sea’s maternity ward and vital carbon sink that feeds and protects us all. What we want is a healthy marine ecosystem, rich in wildlife and natural regeneration, and resource use in balance with it. Anything else is unsustainable.

It is shocking to us that the European Union and national governments, including successive Greek governments, are actively supporting and promoting destructive fish farming, including the production of intensively reared seabass and seabream in the Mediterranean. It cannot be right that millions of euros of taxpayers’ money and subsidies are being pumped into foreign-owned industrial aquaculture producers who simply exploit our resources and offshore the economic benefits. By creating a lax regulatory regime which prioritises corporate profit and growth over environmental protection and the safeguarding of other, less impactful, economic activities, our governments are failing us.

Coastal waters are a priceless natural resource and belong to all. No single user has the right to use Greek waters to the detriment of others. For thousands of years, Greek seas have been shared in relative harmony by fishers, recreational boaters, sea transportation, commercial shipping, tourism-related businesses, and year-round and seasonal homeowners. Our seas belong to life and to all – not to the sterile pursuit of profit.

In ancient Greece, Aktaia was the nymph responsible for the settlement of relations between the sea and the coast, as her name indicates in Greek. We feel the weight of history on our shoulders as we stand united in common cause with our neighbours in Spain, Türkiye and Italy, who are fighting their own battles against destructive fish farming in our region. We are aghast at the pillaging of wild fish populations off the coasts of Africa, Latin America and Asia to produce feed for the fish farms which are blighting our lives here in Greece and throughout the Mediterranean. This is not food security. It’s theft: taking fish from the hungry to feed a polluting export industry.

Since the publication of Ocean Takeover, momentum in Poros has continued to build. Just last week the community took to the streets to stand against the fish farming industry operating off our coastline. More than 2,000 people marched along the sea and stood side by side in a human chain, calling for the government to protect our coast from industrial fish farming.  Alongside community mobilisations, we have also had the opportunity to visit parliament where we were able to share the findings of the report with national politicians. Our seas are not for sale. Our fight is for the future of Greece – and we will not give up.

We are the voice of the coastal communities, and we will not be silenced.

Photo credit – Pavlos Nastas

We are excited to share that Tom Kools has been appointed as the new Executive Director of Foodrise EU. Tom has been a valued member of our board since September and now steps into a more active, operational role to help drive our mission forward.

Gemma Verhoeven (chair of the board of Foodrise EU): “With extensive experience across the food system and strong ties throughout the sector, Tom brings fresh ideas, energy, and a wide-reaching network to support our work. We are  looking forward to this next chapter with Tom and to continuing our collective efforts toward a more sustainable and equitable food system”.

Tom Kools: “Now more than ever, we have the chance to shift money and power away from a food system that harms people, animals and the planet, and instead invest in one that supports health, sustainability and fairness. I’m proud to join Foodrise in this new role to help build the movement to make that happen”.

As of July 1, Tom will be joining and can be contacted at tom@foodrise.eu

We’re well aware that farmed animals are all too often raised in confinement. But is it possible to imagine that the entire food system – crops, livestock, farmers and all – is itself confined and caged? Locked-in and constrained. Not able to deliver what it was meant to and restricted in what it can achieve.

This might seem an unusual way to think about food. But it’s how Feedback has been analysing the multiple connected problems in our food system – and it’s proving to be transformative in how we analyse problems and advocate for solutions.

We’ve been exploring how the system is unfairly weighted towards the industrialised model of food production. Our conclusion is that we are ‘locked-in’ to a system that is harmful for people and planet.

In our latest webinar on the Meat-Soil-Energy Nexus – outlining the connections between industrialised livestock production, the man-made fertiliser industry, and biomethane – we showcase this emergent thinking.

Industrialised livestock production

Feedback demonstrates that big corporations and governments in the global north are shaping food and energy systems around industrialised livestock production.  For example, an estimated 80% of the EU Common Agricultural Policy money supports emission intensive animal agricultural products.[1]

Fertiliser

This industrialised system also relies on damaging inputs via fossil fertiliser and the overuse of synthetic fertiliser is used to grow feed for animals not people. 80% of the nitrogen harvest in European crops provides feeds to support livestock.[2]

Biomethane

And these two industries are actively promoting the rush for biomethane as a response to the energy crisis. Biomethane from manure is one of the drivers growing industrial livestock production. Herd sizes at dairy facilities with digesters that produce biomethane grew 24 times the growth rate for overall dairy herd sizes.[3]

These industries are intertwined. They feed off each other, they are connected, it is a nexus. For example, industrial meat and dairy produces manure, manure is promoted as an energy source (biomethane), which can also be used to produce fertiliser, which is applied to soils, which in turn are used to feed livestock. According to industry voices this is a win-win – but it is in fact a vicious circle that locks us into a food system of continued and multiple harms.

And this system runs counter to peer-reviewed climate science that clearly outlines the adverse impacts of intensive livestock production on planetary boundaries, the negative impact of overuse of fertiliser on our soils, rivers and public health, and the indisputable evidence that we should be moving towards renewable sources of energy such as wind and solar, not incentivising the production of biomethane way beyond its ‘sustainable niche’.

It also reflects a disastrous example of policy incoherence, with current UK and EU policies on food production and consumption, climate targets, public health and animal welfare working against one another.

But by shining a spotlight on how these industries are connected, we can unlock the positive levers for change.

How can this be done? Through redirecting financial flows of private and public finance away from industrialised livestock towards lower meat and dairy production and consumption, reshaping public policy towards a just rural transition that allows land use and diet change, and dismantling corporate power through targeted regulation and divestment in the sector. Our webinar set out some positive examples of these changes.

If we break this cycle, we can feed the estimated world population of 10 billion in 2050. But we do need to change what we grow and what we eat.

By understanding how the system operates as a whole, we can ‘unlock’ the cage and deliver a food system that is fit for people and planet.

References:

[1] Kortleve, A., Mogollon., J., Harwatt, H., Behrens, P. (2024) ‘Over 80% of the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy supports emissions intensive animal products’ Nature Food 5 (4), 288-292

[2] Sutton, M., Howard, M., Erisman J, et al. (2011), The European Nitrogen Assessment: Sources, Effects and Policy Perspectives. Cambridge University Press

[3] Waterman, C. & Armus, M. (2024). Biogas or Bull****? The Deceptive Promise of Manure Biogas as a Methane Solution. Friends of the Earth

The planning application for an industrial megafarm in Norfolk has been unanimously rejected in a landmark decision that could shape the future of industrial farming in Britain and bolster councils and rural communities in their fight against harmful environmental practices in their areas.

Failure to include information on full direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions in the application was considered grounds for rejection by King’s Lynn and West Norfolk Council’s planning experts, in what will be a significant boost for climate campaigners but a damning indictment for UK megafarms. The outcome follows widespread public outcry, over 15,000 objections to the development going ahead and growing concern about the damaging impacts of industrialised farming on the environment, animal welfare, and rural communities.

In rejecting the application, the committee followed the recommendations of the council’s planning experts, who last week advised that the facility should not go ahead, and that the council could face legal challenges if approved. As part of their 200-page report, the council’s planning officers advised that a landmark climate change ruling was applicable to the Methwold megafarm application, meaning the full direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions must be assessed transparently and taken into account when making this planning decision. They advised that failure to include this information in the application was grounds for rejection.

In doing so, the planning officers agreed with legal testimony provided by environmental charity Feedback and Sustain, the alliance for better food and farming, as part of the consultation process. The organisations argued that the polluting emissions from the facility would be significant, unnecessary, unacceptable and incompatible with the UK’s legally-binding climate targets, and that without comprehensive emissions information the application is unlawful.

The planning officers also recommended rejecting the application on the grounds that it failed to provide clarity on how waste (especially pig manure) would be disposed of to prevent pollution to the air and water. The committee was also further advised that the facility risked impacting sites protected for nature conservation.

Lily O’Mara, Climate Campaigner at Sustain, said: “Local authorities are waking up to the reality of industrial farming: a damaging and extractive system of food production that poses a serious threat to human health and our country’s future, both economically and environmentally. King’s Lynn and West Norfolk Council has rightly put nature and communities first by saying no to a development that would have sent us in completely the wrong direction.”

Phil Holtam, Programmes Manager at Feedback, said: “The firm rejection of the proposed megafarm is undoubtedly the right decision. The council has recognised the climate-wrecking impact of this kind of mass production of meat, which should not be the direction of travel for rearing livestock in the UK. Cranswick’s plans would have caused environmental impacts we simply cannot afford if we are to meet Net Zero targets. Factory farming is not the answer – there is a better way to provide food security and decent agricultural livelihoods in the UK.”

Jan Palmer, local resident, said: “These multi-billion food giants simply cannot be allowed to continue bulldosing their way into rural areas, bringing nothing but pollution and the destruction of nature with them.”

The developer, Cranswick PLC, is one of the UK’s largest intensive chicken and pig producers and behind a number of the UK’s livestock ‘megafarms’, whose number has increased by one-fifth since 2016, according to Compassion in World Farming. The growth in intensive livestock farming has been accompanied by a decline in the health of the UK’s rivers, and intensive agriculture is now the main source of river pollution in the UK. Cranswick has been the subject of complaints and enforcement in action, including extreme ammonia pollution. In February, an investigation revealed that several farms owned by Cranswick trading entities had breached environmental regulations at least 90 times in the last seven years in East Anglia.

Objectors to the application noted that the increase in this kind of automated intensive livestock system, which is replacing smaller and more traditional family farms, is estimated to have already cost 14,000 jobs in the UK. Focus on Labour Exploitation (FLEX) has reported widespread use of insecure, seasonal migrant labour in the poultry sector, as well as trafficking, and risks of infringement of employment rights. In 2024, over 100,000 people called on the government to support a campaign led by UK family farmers to halt the intensification of farming, which they said was risking the livelihoods of farmers for the benefit of agribusinesses.

When you think of the food system, I imagine the image that comes to mind for most people is a vision of fields of crops and sheep, a few tractors or maybe even your local supermarket.  But an aspect that tends to be left out of the conversation is seafood and more specifically fish farming fish (a.k.a aquaculture).

Many people are amazed to learn that aquaculture is the fastest-growing food production system in the world with the farmed salmon industry being the most profitable. Since the 1990s the production of farmed salmon has grown by over 1,000%.

But this rapacious growth comes at a cost.

The salmon farming industry is plundering our ocean and extracting food from communities living in some of the poorest parts of the world. Precious wild fish populations are being squandered to feed farmed salmon, while wild salmon populations facing collapse are plagued by sea lice infestations passed on from salmon farms.  Our ecosystems are drowning in plastics, chemicals, and fish faeces. As the industry has grown, it is communities, wild fish populations and nature around the world that are paying the price.

This catastrophic growth does not happen in isolation and would not have been possible without significant financial backing.

After months of detailed and rigorous research, with financial analysis conducted by Profundo, we set out to expose industrial salmon farming’s biggest financial backers through our new report, Fishy Finances, published in partnership with the Global Salmon Farming Resistance.

What did we uncover?

1. Industrial salmon farming is receiving BILLIONS of dollars from big banks and investors around the world.

From January 2015 – November 2024, industrial salmon farming received $18.8 billion in credit and, as of November 2024, financial institutions had nearly $12 billion invested in some of the world’s biggest salmon farming companies, with the Government Pension Fund Norway topping the chart as the largest single investor ($1.7 billion).

The top 5 creditors we identified were Scandinavian banks Nordea, DNB, Danske Bank and Dutch banks Rabobank and ABN Amro.

The top 5 investors we identified were Government Pension Fund Norway, BlackRock, Storebrand, Vanguard and Nordea.

2. Even ‘sustainable’ banks are getting a fin in the game.

Our research also reveals that even so-called ‘sustainable’ banks are fuelling salmon farming. As of November 2024, Triodos had $16 million invested into Bakkafrost, one the world’s largest salmon farming companies. Triodos recently asked, “Your money isn’t just sitting in your bank account – it’s being used to fund something. But is it funding what you believe in?”.  Very few of its customers would support industrial salmon farming given the toll it is extracting from the environment and communities around the world.

3. Mowi, the world’s largest salmon farming company, is reeling in BILLIONS from financiers.

The biggest benefactor of all these fishy finances is the global salmon farming giant Mowi – which made €5.6 billion (US$5.9 billion) in revenue in 2024.  From January 2015 – November 2024, it received over one-third of all credit combined ($7 billion) and had received over half of all investment as of November 2024 ($6 billion).

All of this is giving Mowi the heft to continue on its course of global domination. From 2015-2024 Mowi’s farmed salmon production grew by nearly one-fifth, from 420,000 tonnes to 502,000 tonnes, and it more than doubled its feed production from 282,000 tonnes to 582,000 tonnes.

4. As if this wasn’t enough, MILLIONS of pounds of taxpayer money are also pouring into this industry.

The UK and Scottish government have funnelled MILLIONS of pounds of taxpayer money into some of the world’s biggest salmon farming giants. At a time of increasingly squeezed government finances, this is a shocking use of public money.

The UK government provided £7 million to Mowi Scotland (yes, Mowi again…) through the UK Seafood Fund between 2022-2023 – five times the amount Mowi paid in UK taxes in 2022 (£1.3 million).

The fund also handed out £5 million to Scottish Sea Farms (co-owned by Lerøy Seafood Group and SalMar) between 2022 – 2023 – nearly double what the company paid in taxes to the UK treasury in 2023 (£2.8 million).

Since 2021, the Marine Fund Scotland has awarded nearly £5 million (£4.8 million) to salmon farming companies including Bakkafrost subsidiary the Scottish Salmon Company, Mowi and Cooke Aquaculture.

This seems like a great deal for a profit-hungry foreign corporations benefitting from the Scottish coast and less so for the UK taxpayer.

What’s the consequence of all this financial backing?

The significant financial backing of this destructive industry has fuelled the unsustainable growth of an industry that urgently needs to be rolled back.

Total global production of farmed salmon increased by nearly one-third, from 2.3 million tonnes in 2015 to nearly 3 million tonnes in 2024, considerably outpacing the growth of global meat production. The explosive rise of salmon farming companies in the space of mere decades would not have been possible without the billions in financial support provided by banks, asset managers and governments.

Far from being passive bystanders, financial institutions are actively driving an industry that values profits over everything else.

What can we do?

Our call to action is simple. It’s time to #DefundBigSalmon.

Share our Instagram post far and wide and read our full report here.

New research released today [25 March, 2025] shows 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 – and, often, dispose of.

The new data – based on the experiences of food aid workers in the UK – found 91% have had to discard donated food, with the most common reason the food was damaged or inedible. While 85% reported feeling frustrated, angry or sad when they received donated food items that they can’t use or redistribute.

The research from food experts at environmental charity Foodrise comes with clear recommendations for tackling the significant problems with the UK’s food distribution model, including a whistleblowing mechanism for workers to report when bad quality food is repeatedly passed onto them and mandatory reporting of food waste for large and medium businesses.

Link to the report: Used by: How businesses dump their waste on food charities or www.foodrise.org.uk/used-by

This comes at a time when food aid usage is at a record high with more than 3million people in the UK accessing food aid organisations last year – a huge increase from the 26,000 people who did so in 2008/09. While food bank workers and volunteers go above and beyond every day to try to get decent food to people in need.

But today’s new report – Used By: How businesses dump their waste of food charities – exposes that food redistribution isn’t the answer to either food waste or food poverty. The food experts say businesses must take responsibility for the time and cost of disposing of their own food waste – rather than passing it on to volunteers and community organisations.

The experience of dealing with businesses’ food waste led 98% of food aid workers to say government needs to do more to prevent food waste arising in the first place. While 84% said it was essential larger businesses should be legally required to report their food waste and 71% said government should introduce legally binding targets to reduce food being wasted.

The food aid workers also reported bizarre items being donated that are hard to incorporate into meals or didn’t provide nutritional value. This includes six turkeys frozen together, brandy-flavoured cream in the summer, 10kg of crème fraiche, tiny miso sachets and new experimental flavours of mayonnaise. While one worker said they spent £375 on carpet cleaning after a donation of rotten bananas.

Smaller organisations felt the burden of managing businesses’ food waste most acutely. For example, the majority of food aid organisations which had to throw away 10 per cent or more of donated food items were smaller ones lacking in the resources to quickly process and store donations.

The charity behind the research says the redistribution model fails to take account of the burdens placed on food aid organisations. It’s calling for mandatory reporting of food waste for large and medium businesses throughout the supply chain, national targets to halve food waste by 2030 and a levy retailers must pay in relation to the food wasted in their supply chain. It also endorses the establishment of a real living wage, universal free schools meals and the removal of the five-week wait for Universal Credit.

The new report – Used By: How businesses dump their waste on food charities – is being launched today in the House of Commons.

Jessica Sinclair Taylor, Deputy Director at Foodrise, said: “The redistribution of food is quite clearly not the answer to tackling either food waste or food poverty in the UK. Our research shows that – despite the heroic efforts of food aid employees – food donated by businesses is often damaged, expired, nutritionally inadequate and ends up never being eaten. We need to stop kidding ourselves that food poverty can be solved by food waste and vice-versa, and start addressing the root causes of both to the benefit of people and planet.”

Sheila Dillon, food journalist and presenter, said: “This report sheds light on the lived experience of food aid workers, revealing the frustration, anger and exhaustion of those working at the sharp end of our food system. Their voices make one thing clear: we need systemic change. Businesses must be held accountable for their waste, policymakers must ensure fair wages and social protections, and we must move beyond the short-term fix of redistribution to build a food system that works for everyone.”

Quotes from food aid organisation workers:

“I think it is wrong that supermarkets can record zero waste when actually we, as a food bank, are having to dispose of their waste.”

“Veg comes to us mouldy and we have to sort/clean before we start.”

“We are lucky in that we have facilities to deal with bigger packs for portioning and cooking.”

“I’m cross that the supermarket has not already checked this [food] – leaving it to us to dispose of it.”