Barfoots of Botley and surplus veg
“Food waste” is often just food that lost its label, its looks, or its moment. We sit down with Steve Brown, Head of Customer Technical at Barfoots (and sustainability lead for factory operations), to get specific about what surplus means inside a major UK fresh produce grower and packer, and why the route from field or factory to plate is shaped as much by definitions as by lorries.
We talk about Barfoots’ farming roots and what it takes to supply vegetables across seasons by following the sun through the UK, Spain and Senegal. Then we get into the messy middle: anaerobic digestion for inedible by-product, and the grey area where edible produce can still end up as “waste”. Steve breaks down streams like sweetcorn husks (truly inedible) versus sweet potato and butternut offcuts that are perfectly fine to eat, plus tenderstem broccoli leaves and mixed-colour chillies that fail cosmetic standards but not flavour, safety or nutrition.
From there, we zoom out to the policy and measurement problem. Pre-farm gate food waste is hard to count when harvests are multi-pass and “cut and drop” can be plant husbandry rather than negligence. We explore mandatory food waste reporting, the cultural nature of “edible vs inedible”, and why language matters because what we call waste often becomes waste. The thread that holds it together is simple: redistribution works when relationships make it easy, low-cost and reliable for surplus food to go to people who need it, especially as the cost of living squeezes household budgets.
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