Food waste: Tesco's move to give out-of-date produce away for free is a step in the right direction

But the problem is bigger than just the waste - and in fact bigger than just the moral and ethical failure of so much waste when large swathes of the planet are hungry. There’s a big climate change knock-on - cleverer people than I have worked out that food waste (not food in total) generates about 8 to 10 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Knock that on the head and 1.5C would be much more easily attainable. These numbers are astonishing.

Looked at in that context, Tesco’s newly revealed move to try giving food away at the end of the day seems perhaps trifling. The supermarket says that, starting in a few stores, after it has donated out-of-date food to charities and given first dibs to staff, remaining items will, at the end of the day, be reduced to 0p.

In reality, how much will be left at that point? And will giving food away for free just lead to customers taking more than they need, and then it going to waste at home anyway? Two not easily answerable questions, among the many this idea throws up, but but but… despite the gut-reaction nay-saying this idea provokes, actually it’s a step in the right direction, provided that it is marketed and publicised as an anti-waste initiative.

We know most people aren’t interested in climate change, as it’s too big a problem for an individual to tackle, and most would prefer to look the other way. Something like global food waste is similar - Doris at number 76 can make soup out of slightly soft potatoes but that doesn’t counterbalance industrial inefficiency.

Tesco has a pressing need to reduce the amount of food that is categorised as wasted. It thought it was doing well, with a target of halving it by the end of the year, and had reduced it by 45 per cent between 2017 and 2023. But in fact one of the organisations that was taking the unwanted food was supplying an anaerobic digestor, which creates energy from food. While not unhelpful, this didn’t count under Tesco’s own terms as dealing with food waste, so the 45 per cent figure was closer to 18 per cent.

What schemes like this can do is push to the forefront of people’s minds that food is not an infinite resource, and not something to be discarded casually. It’s a trickle-down effect - governments have targets, businesses are given targets, and then individuals can try to join in. There’s a willingness among most people to do the right thing for society and the planet when they are shown how, and given help. Things like this, while serving Tesco’s own aims, can be a useful prod in the right direction for all of us.