Tier changes to create a ‘glut of wasted food and drink’ at pubs and restaurants, warn experts

Quick tier changes for London and southeast could have an environmental impact, according to food waste charities and experts

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The British Hospitality Association has warned that short-notice tier 3 regulations have the potential to cause food waste on a mass scale, and will likely have a “disastrous” impact.

Restaurants and pubs forced to close their dine-in services this week are worried that if pre-bought festive stock is not sold as takeaway, it could end up in the bin.

The whole of London, plus large areas of Essex and some counties in Hertfordshire, moved in to tier 3 on Wednesday, following a hasty government announcement on Monday.

Tier 3 prevents pubs and restaurants from serving food to customers who are dining in, only allowing them to offer take-out services.

“As with previous short-notice lockdowns this is going to cause a glut of wasted food and drink,” said Kate Nicholls, chief executive for UKHospitality, to The Independent.

“It’s not possible to just turn on and off a hospitality business. Beer will go down the drain, fresh food will have to be thrown away and there will be impacts throughout the supply chain of cancelled orders. This stop-start approach to hospitality is disastrous.”

Restaurant owners around the capital have voiced their dismay at the fast initiation of tier 3 regulations.

“I’m angry. There have been murmurings about Tier 3 in London, but to leak news saying it’s enforced THIS WEDNESDAY on MONDAY AFTERNOON when many restaurants have ordered perishable stock for the new week, created rotas for staff, taken bookings, is just so cruelly inconsiderate,” said a representative from Mangal 2 restaurant in Dalston on Twitter.

Modern British London restaurant Jones and Sons said that it has had to cancel more than 1000 bookings this week. “The impact of this week alone is about £42,000 worth of bookings alone,” said restaurant owner Adam Boulton, who was given 24 hours notice to repurpose all the produce in his building. 

It’s “an absolute disgrace,” he said to Sky News. “There’s going to be a huge issue with food waste, with people not being able to pay their bills.” Boulton said he has mounting costs, and a £35,000 rent bill due soon.

Some restaurant have taken to GoFundMe to raise the much-needed capital to remain in business. Hackney restaurant Pidgin has asked fans of the brand to donate so it can “raise some cash to get through this COVID disasterpiece”.

The UK's largest charity fighting hunger and food waste, FareShare, have said they saw a 250 per cent increase from September to October in donations. In September it moved 28 tonnes of food from restaurants and caterers to be redistributed to frontline charities. 

This figure increased to 98 tonnes in October, before the UK’s second lockdown. But not all food can be repurposed, said a representative from FareShare to The Independent, some food will inevitably end up in landfill. The charity currently has all hands on deck after the government’s recent tier changes in the southeast. 

“Whilst we are yet to see an increase in the amount of surplus food diverted to us from the hospitality and foodservice sectors since the announcement that London and the South East will be placed into tier 3, what we do know is that FareShare has more than doubled the amount of food distributed across the UK since March to over 2 million meals each week," said Lindsay Boswell, FareShare’s chief executive.

The United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that 1.3 billion tonnes of food is wasted globally each year, which contributes to the climate crisis.