A Slice of Bread and Butter
The voice of The Bread and Butter Thing - with stories from the frontline of the cost of living crisis from one of the UK's leading food charities.
A Slice of Bread and Butter
Smell it, don't bin it: One man's crusade against expiry dates
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"Smell it, smell it, use your eyes and use your nose!" declares James, this week's entertaining podcast guest. After precisely "50 years, 9 months and 13 days" in engineering across the Merchant Navy, Army, and food production industries, James now keeps himself out of mischief with Bread and Butter and tending to his allotment. Join Mark and Alex as they enjoy James's opinions on sustainability, food systems and generational attitudes toward food waste.
Welcome back to A Slice of Bread and Butter with Alex and Mark from the Bread and Butter Thing. We're a charity that delivers affordable food to the heart of deprived neighbourhoods, to help nourish communities and act as a catalyst for change.
Speaker 2We provide access to a nutritious, affordable range of food, which means our members can save money on their shopping, feed their families healthily, as well as access support too, right in the heart of their communities.
Speaker 1And this is where we share a slice of life of somebody involved in bread and butter and hear about how they connect with us, and this week it's a bit of a legend, isn't it?
Speaker 2Well, you could say that, yeah, he is a legend, clearly a living legend, james or Jimmy. We'll have a debate after we've had a listen.
Food Waste and Methane Production
Speaker 3Everybody keeps calling me Jimmy. I don't know why that started from the thorny. My name's not Jimmy at all, it's actually James. I'm 76 years old On the 13th of September 2013,. I officially retired after 50 years, 9 months and 13 days as an engineer. I've worked in the Merchant Navy. I've been in the Army as an engineer. I have a lot of experience with food production and seeing the waste of food. I invented a method of reusing the grey water in the house and get the nice rebate for it. I've been looking seriously at aerobic and anaerobic digestion called the methane. 18 months ago I was at Rawthorne's Community Day and I sat next to a very nice chap who told me all about the bread and butter thing and I went to Thorny and since then I have found it very useful on a Friday afternoon because I need to keep myself busy.
Speaker 2So tell me about the aerobic and anaerobic digestion.
Speaker 3Were you looking at trying to give a solution to the people nearby to engine with one moving part which would actually run, as I say, on elephant dung plus all the food waste which is now skipped, and it's criminal?
Speaker 2Were you looking at anaerobic digestion for this country or because you said elephant dung? Was that a flippant comment or were you looking at?
Speaker 3Worldwide. They fly vegetables in from all over the world. I could take you to a place 10 minutes from here. Look over the fence and see the skips full of avocados from Israel dumped grapes from South America dumped leeks from Egypt dumped. The people on the production lines don't care. All they have to do is knock out X number of packs per day, and all the excess has been flown from places far away. It gets dumped.
Challenging Sell-by Dates
Speaker 2So, as you say, james, this is all perfectly good food, right? So aerobic or anaerobic digestion is one way of disposing of it to get a natural, organic by-product, but I like using food for its intention, which is to be eaten. So what do you think should change to actually stop people actually throwing it into anything that could look like a bin?
Speaker 3for a start, sell by debts could be scrapped if we have not descended far enough from the trees to know if something doesn't smell right, it probably isn't right.
Speaker 2Smell it, smell it use your eyes and use your nose. Yep, I'm totally with you. By the way, and I think my current record stands I've had a 27 year old tin of soup and that was perfectly fine. It was more salty than it is nowadays. That's all that felt different about it. I'm looking at it kind of upstream, at the people making the food, whether they're packing it or whether they're making meals or whatever. That's where so much of this food is wasted. What do you think the industry could do?
Speaker 3okay, speaking from experience of putting rotisseries in to cook your chickens. The chickens come in a bar-coated box frozen in my factory and I have been through every single state. I've worked in every single stage of food production, from growing, repairing the actual machines in the field, all the way through production, boiling, chopping, etc. The people who produce the hot food are contractually bound by legislation not to sell a roast chicken. If the computer goes ping, it must be destroyed. They are contractually obliged by law to bend that.
Speaker 2So do you think that's a quality thing?
Speaker 3No, it's a decision made by a committee. Covering their backs I nearly swore there. I nearly swore, I nearly said covering their arses.
Speaker 2I think we can do arses.
Speaker 3Okay, yeah, there's enough of them. A lot of the legislation is people covering their backsides. We must not sell anything which could possibly give a member of the public a ticky little tummy and we would get sued for millions of quid. The wonky vegetables was a good move. Just because the carrot has two legs and an arm doesn't mean to say you can't cook it, because on my allotment all the vegetables, everything gets chucked into a pot, so it does.
James' Background and Pension Struggles
Speaker 2So how long have you had the allotment? Is that something else to keep you busy?
Speaker 3About 10 years. Yep, yeah, it keeps my steps up Fitbit going.
Speaker 2yeah.
Speaker 3So it does yep.
Speaker 2It doesn't sound like a Spalding accent.
Speaker 3Belfast, Northern Ireland, East Belfast, two minutes walk from Harlow Move Shipyard that's where I was born. Looked out the back window and there it was.
Speaker 2And did your engineering start at the shipyard or elsewhere? Yes, so went in as an apprentice. Yeah, as soon as I could, I went into the merchant navy as an engineer so last year were you affected by the warm home scheme being taken away from pensioners?
Speaker 3I am just mentally working out how many difference were words? I can't say.
Speaker 2Okay. So when they did it, they did quite a big push on pension credit, didn't they? Did you look at that?
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 2So do you receive pension credit now, were you eligible?
Speaker 3I'm going to sing you a little song.
Speaker 2This could be entertaining.
Speaker 3Okay, we're piercing in the wind, just piercing in the wind, and there are several verses to that. A glorious feeling.
Speaker 2It's a clean version.
Speaker 3Yeah, the criteria. I'm retired but I get state pension plus other bits of pension. We are ineligible for everything. We can get nothing.
Speaker 2So is that a means testing? Are they looking at your other pensions and saying because you've got so much?
Speaker 3other pensioners, because in my little part-time job, labour in their wisdom, pensioners used to be able to earn as much as they liked and not pay tax, so they sneaked in tax. So in my part-time job I earn about £400 a month and out of that I pay £100 tax Because with my state pension and my part time job it takes me way up. And then I have now sneakily crept in national insurance on that as well and it's going to rise as well, and the pension threshold, which is £12,500 a year, which they're holding. And every time they increase the pension and then your state pension goes over the minimum and pensions will be taxed and that is criminal. There you go. I hope you're going to edit this I am going to edit this so I nearly said thank you for that.
Speaker 3So james is um.
Speaker 2So James is. How best do I describe this? When I was introduced to James, everybody said he's entertaining and engaging. They didn't put feisty.
Speaker 1Irish and sweary, my two favourites.
Speaker 2He knew his stuff clearly a good engineer. It's fascinating how he was developing. Do we need an explainer about anaerobic digestion?
Speaker 1Yes, and the other one. So I've heard of anaerobic digestion, obviously because I've worked with you, but the other one, what is that all about?
Speaker 2Both of them break down the organic matter and create natural methane gas. So one uses air or oxygen and the other one doesn't.
Speaker 1And is one more sustainable than the other, or are they both as bad as each other?
Speaker 2Well, bad's an interesting way of looking at it, isn't it?
Speaker 1Again, this is because I work with you.
Speaker 2Yeah, they're both waste. They're both waste and they both create natural methane. So are they bad in a way, of looking at surplus food going into them? They're as bad as each other because it should be ourselves that are actually consuming and digesting and creating energy from that food, rather than the anaerobic digestion plants. And they're also bad to be discussed because lots and lots of people are trying to find ways of engineering methane gas out of our energy supplies as well, because gas isn't great either for the environment. It's still a gas that's going to create lots of CO2. Methane gas is another fossil fuel. So when anaerobic and aerobic digestion was first come about, everybody said it was like a new renewable energy. But actually it's not, because when you burn methane, you still create lots of CO2.
Speaker 1So we're not going to be running on methane-powered cars at any point.
Speaker 2Hydrogen, maybe Methane? No, methane is just the natural gas that's sat there in the Irish Sea, etc. We've got lots of it about what the Ruskies have as well. It's what's in your central heating boiler, in your gas hob at home. But what it isn't is a environmentally sound fuel source, because you burn it, and when you burn it you not only do you create co2 but you create carcinogens, etc. So burning things is not a good way of creating energy. That's the challenge for all of us. So that's why they're looking at wind and solar and all the rest of it because there's no burning involved.
Speaker 1Don't burn things, kids. I thought it was interesting that he'd invented a way to recycle his grey water.
Speaker 2Honestly, you could just geek out all day with him, couldn't you? Yeah, I hate to say it, but I had that kind of Wallace and Gromit moment with him. Him, couldn't you? Yeah, I hate to say, but I had that kind of wallace and gromit moment with him. I did wonder what weird and wonderful inventions these have around his house, do you?
Speaker 1think he's got gnomes gardening, a little army of military gnomes just destroying hedges you've been watching the christmas special, haven't you? It's on repeat in our house. We love Wallace and Gromit. I think he needs to paint and smell by date, though.
Speaker 2Oh, that was a good one, wasn't it? That's a brilliant smell by date. That is bang on, isn't it?
Speaker 1You need to share more about this 27-year-old suit, because that's pretty special.
Speaker 2This was in the spirit of james not liking the waste and he's right about all the air miles that's put onto things avocados. I don't agree with him about people not caring on the packing lines etc. He was a bit cynical about that because I do think there's a lot of people that care in the industry.
Speaker 2I suppose the difficulty is when he can see the skips of all this stuff yeah it's a challenge, but but there'll be reasons for some of it, if not all of it. But those reasons still need engineering out of our system. But Smell by Date is a great example of what he was talking about, because we need to get away from best before dates at least. So my dad was a frozen food wholesaler back in the 70s. Best before dates did not exist on frozen food really fact, yeah, when did they come into play then?
Speaker 1mid to late 80s, I'm guessing was it a money maker, so it was consume this, buy another, consume this, buy another no, lots of people argue that way and I don't think it was.
Speaker 2I think it still is to this date and it's just badly interpreted. It's a quality standard, right? So frozen food the longer it's in frozen storage for the more it kind of dehydrates, the moisture comes out of and it gets drier. You've probably seen this. Yeah, back of your freezer you've got something that's ancient freezer burn. Yeah, exactly, fridge burn is a lot of it is kind of dehydration, all of the moisture coming out of it. That's why they did it. It's still perfectly safe. There's nothing about it that's gonna kill you, but it won't taste as nice or the texture will be different and all the rest of it.
Food Safety vs Food Quality
Speaker 2That's why they did it, because I do remember there was an absolute scandal at the time that there was like 10 year old pizzas that were being sold and they they were going into supermarkets and stuff and it was just like, well, so what? It doesn't matter, because it was only a quality standard, so they weren't killing anybody with it. But I do think there's massive misinterpretation of a best before date.
Speaker 1You know, people just see a date and say, right, it's gone beyond that, chuck it and I think, going back to what we always kind of touch on with our podcast chats, is a generational thing. So older people are like, oh, it'll be fine, get it down here, and younger people are like, oh no, I can't possibly eat that yeah, I know so I I still cut furry bits off cheese and moldy bits off tops of jams if they're in there.
Speaker 2But yeah, you don't see luke doing that. I think you're right. I think there's something generational about that. But is that because there's too much food around nowadays? Yeah, it's not precious or held in high value yeah, we've driven down the price and it's funny, isn't it? Because we're talking about this and driven down the price. Driven down the price, but it's still.
Speaker 1The healthy stuff is still massively unaffordable yes, and what I wanted to know was so obviously, jimmy has jimmy james, jimmy james, he has.
Speaker 2I got told off for calling him Jimmy.
Speaker 1I know let's call him James. I don't want to be told off by him. He might sing a song about me. He is very knowledgeable at every stage of the food manufacturing process. What when that computer goes ping with the roast chicken? How does that work?
Speaker 2Well, it's another quality standard, right? So if you've got a chicken sat in a rotisserie, there's only so long you can have it rotating and spinning on that before it's starting to lose its moisture and that texture. I'm a veggie writer and I'm going to try and explain what chicken's like, so you're going to have to help me out here. So you, I'll stop you there.
Speaker 1So out of here, so I'll stop you there. So one of my weirdest jobs I worked in the outback at this shop that sold everything from fishing equipment to tellies to takeaway, to just bog standard convenience shop and there was a rotisserie chicken and if you were there on the six o'clock shift it was your job to prep the rotisserie chickens and twist their legs and pull out bits and shove it on the. And it's six o'clock in the morning. I can't believe. I still eat chicken, to be honest so that went on at 6am.
Speaker 2Yes, how many hours do you think you could leave it on the rotisserie and still think that it was a decent quality?
Speaker 1yeah, there was a computer that never went bing.
Speaker 2In the outback.
Speaker 1I'm surprised about rotisserie.
Speaker 2So, yeah, definitely back to smell and look. However, with the smell and look, things like chicken and I would say, things like shellfish. You can't.
Speaker 1You can't risk it, can you?
Speaker 2You just can't risk it.
Speaker 1No way, just can't risk it?
Speaker 2no way. Yeah, so there are things that definitely need dates to this day. Maybe that's the sensible. Should we say the halfway house with james that we we actually say yes, we support james's argument to lose a lot of views by dates and change them for smell by dates, but there are some things that are just not safe. Yeah, agreed, it's got a voice. It could probably sing about you, alex.
Speaker 1I bet he's great fun down the pub. Yeah, he made it to the end and then F-bomb Just couldn't help, just had to come out, didn't it?
Speaker 2Just had to come out.
Speaker 1I enjoyed that one.
Speaker 2Oh, I forgot to tell you about my 27-year-old tin of soup.
Speaker 1So are you telling me it was saltier back then than now? Yeah, that surprises me with the amount of shit. Sorry, I'm keeping the swearing theme going.
Speaker 2They get stuffed in food now, especially ambient, yeah, but what they'll put in nowadays is, I'm guessing, when they do reduce salt stuff, there must be a flavoring or something that gets added to make it taste sort of like salt artificial stuff yeah, whereas the consistency it was. What flavor was tomato soup? It was Heinz tomato soup, 27-year-old, and it was definitely thicker and saltier, but there was nothing wrong with it, and I'm here to tell the tale, obviously.
Speaker 1I think we need to get in touch with Heinz. This could start a campaign.
Speaker 2yeah, Well, yeah, this is where lots of the cynicism comes in of people saying no, no, no, they still. You know, even though it's a quality stamp, they still use the best befores in the wrong way, and maybe some do. Coming back to James, he's still missing out again. See, I don't think that he. I think he was saying he couldn't be arsed with some of the forms, etc. I think those forms are genuinely difficult.
Speaker 1Oh yeah, you've got to have time and patience on your side, and James strikes me as somebody who's so used to being competent at a lot of things. If he doesn't take to it immediately, that's it, it's struck off and he'll make do. And he is making do. But he could be a lot more comfortable, I suppose, looking at what he was saying about bread and butter as well, was just like.
Speaker 2It's fascinating that he's like I need to keep busy. I need to keep busy. Yes, that really came across, didn't it? And I think more community volunteering clearly needs to be available for more and more people like James.
Speaker 1If only he lived in Manchester, he'd be in that warehouse, he'd be out on them vans.
Speaker 2Servicing our roller shutter doors.
Speaker 1With our methane powered vans, absolutely.
Speaker 2So if you'd like to know more about the bread and butter thing and what we get up to, you can find us at team tbbt, on instagram, twitter and tiktok, or on linkedin or online at bread and butter thingorg and if you have any feedback or thoughts on the podcast, you can get in touch with us by email at podcast, at bread and butter thingorg.
Speaker 2lastly, we're always open to new members at all of our hubs, so if you or someone you know would benefit from our affordable food scheme, you can find your nearest hub on the Become a Member page of the website.
Speaker 1And please do all the things that podcasts ask you to do Like us, subscribe, leave us a review, share us with your friends and chat about us on social yeah and tell your mum, tell your dad and anybody else that you come across at the weekend.
Speaker 2So yes, we'll see you next time.
Speaker 1See you next time.
