Interviewer – Thank you for granting this interview 

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Interviewee – It’s alright  

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Interviewer - May I ask your name?  

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Interviewee – Robert Binny 

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Interviewer – Please be aware that you can choose to not participate at any time of this interview. 

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Interviewee – It’s alright 

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Interviewer – What measure does this organisation take to minimise food waste in the collection and distribution process? 

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Interviewee  - We’re an Eco shop so we already received food that are meant to go to the landfill from Morrisons in their main distribution centre, we also use FairShare who we buy food from, which is due to go out of date very shortly so most of the food that gets supplied to us, either free or the ones we pay for, is close to date food, so we distribute it via the chat or Eco shop. We distribute it all to approximately 250 families in Middlesbrough. So that's over a thousand people who get the benefit of what we do here on a weekly basis.  

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Interviewer - Amazing, amazing. So, my next question is, what happens if you receive more food than you can distribute?  

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Interviewee - If we've got more food and it's getting very close to date, then we put it out on those two tables over there, which are empty at the moment, and it's free. And people take as much as they want.

And when you offer free food to people, it disappears very quickly. Occasionally when we get given six or seven hundred loads and we can't shift them until they've gone past their sell-by date, then unfortunately that just has to be put in. For any vegetables, we have a peace garden, quite a big garden at the back, where we put it to turn it into compost. So, any vegetable products, we chop up and we turn it into compost for our peace garden. 

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Interviewer - Impressive. 

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Interviewee - Oh, we're right on the board.  

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Interviewer - So, my third question, what impact has your organisation had on reducing food waste in the community? 

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Interviewee - Massive, because all that food would normally be thrown away straight in. We pick up two small van loads of food from Morrison's distribution centre alone every week. Sometimes we pick up to five cages of food, which would be thrown away unless we picked it up. And that's just from one supply. 

Interviewer – so my last question, are there any policy changes you’d like to see to improve food donation and waste reduction henceforth?  

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Interviewee – waste reduction wise, I think that we need to be much more sensible, and the supermarkets need to be much more sensible when they’re marking up foods. If something says display by-date, that doesn’t mean it’s not going to be good. I can pick up milk from the display-by date and I can use the milk up to 6/7 days later so it doesn’t truly reflect the fact of when it goes off and the best way of doing it is by sniffing it, if it smells bad, then its off. If it doesn’t smell bad, then its still good. 

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interviewee 2 – I was just speaking to the lady over there, if I’ve got stuff in my shop and its going to go out of date by Friday and when I come in tomorrow, and its going to go out of date tomorrow, I’ll say just take it. Have it free. Do you know what I mean? Just take it and if you take it, and I'm saying them out, I'm not bothered, if you take it home, give it to your neighbours, give it to your friends, put it down the street, share it with people. I don't like throwing food in the bin. There’re too many people hungry. Don't throw it away. Give it away. 

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Interviewee 1 - And, I mean, you've got to consider, like, if you look at, if you're having a bit of steak, right, everyone likes a bit of steak if they can afford it. Now they hang that. You pay more money for steak that's hung in a shed for like three months to marble and to get more flavour in and to ensure; and yet, as soon as they put it in a bit of Tesco packaging, it goes out of date in the week.  

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Interviewer - Yeah. 

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Interviewee – Really? 

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Interviewer - Yeah. 

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Interviewee -  See what I mean? That steak will be good as long as it hasn't got mould on it because they've already created a... the whole maturing process is the process of it starting to go off, do you see what I'm saying? 

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Interviewer – Yeah, of course.  

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Interviewee - Oh display by this steak must eat by that steak, you can eat it months later and it's perfectly alright. So, I think it's this, people are so panicked about causing food poisoning that they put far too much space in between when they think it goes off and it goes off. 

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Interviewer - Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.