Food banks receiving 'rotten' donations from supermarkets 'not fit for human consumption'

Would you eat “rotten” and “emulsifying” fruit and vegetables? How about a canned “pork and potato concoction”? What would you do with 12 turkeys frozen together, two crates of brandy cream, and four bin bags full of doughnuts?

These are real examples of food that has been donated by supermarkets and distributed to food aid organisations, according to charity staff and volunteers working tirelessly to support the growing numbers of people going hungry in the UK.

Hundreds of thousands of people rely on food banks to survive – and there’s no doubt that many charitable organisations depend on the donations of surplus food from supermarkets to cope with the demand.

But there are concerns as food aid workers have added ‘throw away inedible food’ to their job description, with many as 91% having had to discard of donated food, recent research from Feedback Global found.

• ‘Frustrated, angry, exhausted’: Food banks forced to ‘throw out food donated by supermarkets’
• Food banks aren’t the solution to poverty – especially when businesses use them to dump food waste
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The Big Issue reported on the findings and has since heard from charity workers who have described receiving food donations that are “not fit for human consumption”.

Michael Palmer, who used to volunteer collecting supermarket donations for a local charity in North Allerton, says: “I was really shocked at the quality of the produce and how this produce would vary in quantity. There’s stuff that’s not fit for human consumption.”

The charity passes defective produce to a community farm which feeds animals.

“There was food that was emulsifying in bags. There was tray after tray of stuff that was well past its sell by date, rotten food, mouldy bread, broken packaging,” Palmer says.

It is a similar situation for Andy, who volunteers at a charity for people facing homelessness in Wales. He explains that “most of the time” food aid organisations receive the “off-cuts of unsold produce or unmarketable produce”. 

This includes “items where companies tried a new flavour and nobody wanted to buy it” – such as a recent donation of two crates of non-alcoholic brandy cream. Volunteers spend time “sifting and sorting” donations, including removing dozens of black eyes from potatoes.

Andy explained they receive surplus bread from supermarkets every week – often in six yellow bags the “size of bin bags”. They were recently given four of those filled with doughnuts.

“I’ve really struggled personally over what food we are giving people, predominantly people with experience of street homelessness. We all need to have luxuries and a bit of sugar now and again, but giving people and trying to encourage them to eat more and more doughnuts, that’s exacerbating diabetes, health inequalities, and early mortality,” Andy says.

Andy says he has had to defrost 10 turkeys frozen together. He also describes a “worrying trend” of food being cooked up and put into tins.

“One was marketed as pork and potato tins,” he says. “They didn’t say it was soup. It’s got zero fibre content – I don’t know how they were able to turn a potato and strip it of all its fibre. The meat was highly processed, and I’m not adverse to eating spam, but it was a watery soup with bits of clumped up spam.”

They received around 40 tins of this “pork and potato concoction” which they felt unable to give to guests. “All it does is save the big supermarkets money, because their waste is diverted from landfill. It’s in their best interest to shun the food to us,” Andy adds.

Volunteers have had to buy food to give to guests with their own money.

Food banks and charities often rely on organisations such as FareShare for donations – and the Big Issue has reported on the positive impact this can have. FareShare works with the food industry to redistribute millions of meals worth of surplus food to over 8,000 charities and community groups across the UK. More than 96% of the food received is redistributed.

“Our regional warehouses have processes and relationships for when any surplus food cannot be consumed, with this food diverted to animal feed or anaerobic digestion,” a spokesperson said.

More than 90% of food banks and charities told FareShare it means they can provide a greater variety of food, including more fresh fruit and vegetables. Nearly 70% say they support more people, and one in three have started new food services.

Many charities use the donated items to “expand their impact”, funding schemes such as breakfast clubs and community meals.

“Charities consistently tell us how vital this support is — and that without it, over 70% would face serious financial strain, with more than half at risk of scaling back or closing their food services altogether,” the spokesperson said.

“Not all groups can manage chilled or bulk items, so we’re working with food businesses to turn surplus into smaller packs, cooked meals and longer-life products. We’re also calling for mandatory food waste reporting and greater support for farmers. Good food should never go to waste — and should always go where it can do the most good.”

However, Feedback Global’s research and the experiences of food bank workers have raised concerns. It  is calling for a whistleblowing mechanism for food aid workers to report poor-quality donations, as well as mandatory reporting of food waste for large and medium businesses.

It is also urging the government to take action to end poverty with the establishment of a real living wage, universal free school meals and an end to the five-week wait for universal credit.

Catherine, who runs a social justice organisation in Liverpool, said: “We often have a problem with fresh fruit and vegetables that we get – that is really not fit to eat. We recently had to go through crates of tomatoes that had gone to liquid. That’s the kind of thing we get. 

“We get ultra-processed food, which is a big problem for us. We don’t tend to throw it away, but it’s concerning that there’s so much ultra-processed food. We are forever trying to balance a glut of fresh fruit and vegetables that needs to be given out quickly, and then it’s ultra processed food that really hasn’t got any nutritional value.”

Catherine said she is “concerned from a climate justice angle”. 

“We’ve got all this plastic that’s just going in the bin and isn’t biodegradable or anything. Organisations like FareShare are redistributing food, and supermarkets are trying to reduce their waste, and we’re happy to take it – but it’s a system where we’re at the end of the chain,” she added.

“It’s not honouring the people who, as human beings, are really challenged by food poverty. We want to be able to give people fresh fruit and vegetables. And I genuinely appreciate the pressures on organisations like FareShare.”

The charity had to reduce how many food parcels people could take every three months as a result of a “consistent increase in numbers of people turning up at the food banks” and a “reduction in donations”. 

“We’re very keen to look at the systemic reasons why people haven’t got enough food to eat rather than just giving them a bag which has no dignity in it,” Catherine said. 

“We live in a deeply unequal society. So how can we improve things for the people who are struggling? Because actually, nobody in this country should be hungry. There is enough money and there is enough food.”

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