350 heads of broccoli is nothing really for a pub that churns out roughly 17500 meals in a year based on my much underestimated averages.
But lets look at this based on the UK. According to my research, there are roughly 58000 pubs to be found across the UK, this does not include restaurants and fast food outlets.
So let's do the British thing and be conservative about this again. Let's say only 50 percent of these pubs serve food. So that's about 29000 pubs. Now let's apply the theory that most of these 29000 would waste roughly a head of broccoli a day. That takes our numbers to 29000 heads of broccoli a day multiplied by a conservative average of only 350 days of trading will bring us to an amount of 10 million one hundred and fifty thousand heads of broccoli thrown away a year. An average head would weigh almost a kilogram bringing it to an astounding 10150000 kilograms of edible food thrown away as garbage.
Now obviously we can't take this waste and use it for public consumption because the great and all wise health and safety would have a fit, but what about this for an idea…
What If every pub across the UK bought one less broccoli a day from the veg suppliers or better yet! What if every pub serving food bought the one head of broccoli in theory but then requested it be given as a donation. How you ask?
Each broccoli head could be broken up into its little florets as usual and then (wait for this crazy idea) we could freeze it as usual and ship it out to countries in dire need of fresh foods.
Lets be honest I'm sure a country such as Sierra Leone with a few million refuges begging for a decent meal would not be too bothered with the strict codes of health that England measures its food standards with. I mean who cares if the veg gets there and it may have a little freezer burn on the edges or that the packaging might be a little dirty from the cargo hold of the vessel that brings it to them. Its food that will feed people rather than the holes of landfills!
I could go on about the other waste that I see thrown everyday such as the liters upon liters of real ales that could be gathered and sent as a fertilizer for crops in impoverished lands. Or even the water wasted every day in the cleaning of dishes and utensils but alas I fear maybe I've opened up one can of worms too many for one day.
Hope its a little food for thought at least…
