COVID-19 …although devastating to many has meant that many have also discovered the joy of eating food and sharing it with their loved ones…Family time has come to the fore and people are eating together again.

People have come together and are organising food for families in need…Although individual donations to food banks have decreased company donations have gone up.

1.8 million people are now in a situation where they can’t afford to feed their families and food poverty will rise even higher. Food banks are even more important during Covid-19…

Hospitality is in crisis...in every town, village and city…Businesses are either closing or rethinking how they deliver their food to the customer…Orders are taken either on-line or in person at a distance and delivered by your friendly chef or waiter…

Bridlington in the Uk was known as the lobster capital of Europe…Because borders have closed their market has dried up…Restaurants have had to quickly adapt or go out of business…They have had to adapt and provide takeaway menus which are the same as their menus in their restaurants…Fresh lobsters delivered to their doors…

The locals are loving it...restaurant meals delivered to their doors or to pick up…these are the businesses that will survive…

Quality Eats without the seats has become the new norm…

The smaller venues have adapted quicker and faster than the big chains…I think it is great that businesses are thinking of new ways to get food to their customers and their customer base is changing it is not the huge companies it is the local people…Door to door deliveries are taking place again it is almost as if the ways of my childhood are making a comeback to survive farmers and restaurants are having to rethink their policies…

Fresh fruit direct to your door…customers are seeing the changes and they are loving it…

They are delivering milk fresh from the cows only 12 hours old daily to local homes and the customers are loving it…knowing just how fresh their milk is…They are getting to know the farmers and the restaurant owners…

It has also made the Uk government rethink their strategy they have realised that now is the time to think hard about a new food strategy…

Going forward…people need to learn how to build up a pantry without stockpiling …which means then there is food for everyone.

The food, farming, countryside Commission which is an independent body has been set up to look at radical changes… by focussing attention to implementation – turning ideas and recommendations into practical actions and real change.

With partners in governments, businesses and communities, there’re helping to convene collective leadership on the difficult questions and resource communities to become more resilient and adaptable for the changes ahead.

https://ffcc.co.uk/what-we-do#current-work

Tesco…the Uk’s largest supermarket is tackling food waste…

They have linked up with the environmental charity Hubbub to run the six-week experiment in which families will receive advice on meal planning and food storage along with recipe tips for using up leftovers.

The results from 55 households will be used by Tesco and Hubbub to offer advice and practical steps to help cut food waste, which on top of its negative environmental impact typically costs a family of four about £60 a month.

The UK has signed up to a global sustainable target of halving food waste by 2030.

Consumers are being asked to rifle through their bins in order to weigh and record their daily food waste, in an ambitious trial that aims to reduce the 6.6m-tonne mountain of food thrown away by UK households every year.

The trial takes place at a time when the UK lockdown has led to a dramatic change in the nation’s shopping and cooking habits. New polling of about 2,000 adults for Tesco found that 67% now felt differently about food. Almost a third of respondents (29%) said the pandemic had made them value food more.

“Lockdown has driven the biggest change to the nation’s food habits in generations, and many of us have experienced shortages for the first time,” said Aoife Allen of Hubbub. “Cutting food waste has proved a stubborn challenge and we are a long way from the goal of halving food waste.”

Supermarkets have been criticised for wasting food in their supply chains that could be diverted to food banks. Tesco was the first to publicise its figures.

Although this is not the first time that a UK supermarket has attempted to try this to cut food waste and indeed we all know that supermarkets waste the biggest amounts of food every day due to sell-by dates on food.

Will it be different this time? Have the COVID-109 restrictions and quarantines changed how consumers see food?

Yes, the lockdown has thrown up new challenges and in July the government’s waste advisory body, Wrap, said self-reported food waste was up by 30%, reversing progress made at the start of the pandemic as consumers threw away less food while confined to their homes.

In Tesco’s research, 35% of people said they reduced their food waste during the lockdown and 75% said they had kept this up since restrictions were lifted. Nearly two-thirds (61%) were cooking with leftovers every week, while 32% were planning meals and almost a quarter (22%) were batch-cooking and freezing more.

Only 3% of those who cut food waste during lockdown said they did not plan to continue these new habits in future. This sounds promising and maybe Tesco’s drive to cut food waste will be more successful than Sainsbury’s was in 2018.

I am excited and hope that we will see radical changes throughout the whole world as people realise that it really is good to eat with family…to cook from scratch… to buy local…to know their suppliers and maybe just maybe supermarkets will also change …

A brave New World?

Thank you for joining me today I hope you are all keeping safe and well…x

About Carol Taylor: 

Enjoying life in The Land Of Smiles I am having so much fun researching, finding new, authentic recipes both Thai and International to share with you. New recipes gleaned from those who I have met on my travels or are just passing through and stopped for a while. I hope you enjoy them.

I love shopping at the local markets, finding fresh, natural ingredients, new strange fruits and vegetable ones I have never seen or cooked with. I am generally the only European person and attract much attention and I love to try what I am offered and when I smile and say Aroy or Saab as it is here in the north I am met with much smiling.

Some of my recipes may not be in line with traditional ingredients and methods of cooking but are recipes I know and have become to love and maybe if you dare to try you will too. You will always get more than just a recipe from me as I love to research and find out what other properties the ingredients I use contain to improve our health and wellbeing.

Exciting for me hence the title of my blog, Retired No One Told Me! I am having a wonderful ride and don’t want to get off, so if you wish to follow me on my adventures, then welcome! I hope you enjoy the ride also and if it encourages you to take a step into the unknown or untried, you know you want to…….Then, I will be happy!

Thank you once again for reading this post I hope you all have a fabulous week and stay safe these are troubling times xx