retailers must cut food waste

About 12% of the world's population is malnourished and 6000 people atarve to death every day. Demand for land to grow crops is causing deforestation, soil erosion is rapidly turning land infertile and water tables are being lowered to irrigate crops. Rising food prices were partly responsible for the recent violence in the Middle East and North Africa. Yet ridiculous amounts of food are being wasted. Many retailers throw away leftover food, most of it still edible, and lock the bins or spoil the contents so that people who are struggling to afford to feed themselves cannot take any of it. Some of the food being wasted is imported from countries which do not even have sufficient food for their own people. I want shops to put food which is out of date or more than they can sell onto a separate shelf, where it can be taken for free by anyone. The usual excuse for not doing so is that it would undercut sales, and they must have a vast amount of waste if it is enough to make much difference to sales. Shelves should not be so overstocked, and suppliers should be allowed to sell wherever they want to rather than having to waste anything surplus what their contract requires. Cosmetic standards on food should also be removed so that small and oddly shaped fruit and vegetables can be sold. Also, 'buy one get one free' deals should be abolished because they persuade people to buy more than they need, so they end up either binning some of it or eating it all despite not being hungry.