A supermarket in Manchester has left some locals agape after pictures emerged showing staff piling heaps of fresh produce into waste carts after fridges failed on Monday night.
It is understood that some refrigeration units at Tesco in Stretford failed on Monday after a day of soaring temperatures across the region brought highs of over 35C.
Images shared with The Manc show large amounts of food being emptied out of fridges and dumped into wire carts at Stretford Tesco as aisles were blocked off.
After speaking with customers who were there, The Manc understands that much of this produce was marked as waste and then thrown away.
This is in line with existing hygiene regulations, which mean that food that hasn’t been able to be stored at the correct temperatures must be removed from sale – either to additional cool space or to be disposed of entirely .
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Still, some who witnessed it were left in shock at the amount of food being wasted at a time when many are struggling to feed their families.
A customer who wished to remain anonymous told The Manc: “Stretford Tesco’s fridges broke and they were piling the contents of every fridge into trolleys to bin it all.
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“I felt sick. There wasn’t a single fridge with stuff in and it’s a giant Tesco.”
Image: The Manc Group
They added: “We thought maybe the temperature was too warm in there and it brought the temperatures of the fridges up too much to be able to keep things at the right temperature.”
Elsewhere, at another large Tesco store in Prestwich, produce was seen being taken out of freezers but staff told customers that it was not being thrown away but rather stored in the back to keep it cool.
— Maze of Deception (@MazeofDeception) July 18, 2022
Images shared on Twitter suggest that the problem is not unique to Manchester but is happening across the country, with some social media users speculating that thousands of pounds worth of produce has been binned as a result.
One user wrote: “All the fridges and freezers in the big Tesco have stopped working due to the heat #BigTroubleInBigTesco.”
It is not the first time that such an issue has occurred at the supermarket, with similar reports often cropping up in previous years whenever there has been a surge in temperatures.
Legally here in the UK, supermarkets are well within their rights to destroy unsold food but some campaigners have argued that the law should be changed to make such food waste illegal.
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According to food waste charity Fairbite, 250,000 tons of food is thrown away in the UK each year by supermarkets whilst at the same time some citizens find themselves facing hunger as they do not have the money to feed themselves.
In France, there are new laws on fighting food waste that mean French supermarkets are forbidden from destroying unsold food products and are instead compelled to donate it to charities.
Image: The Manc Group
Since this law was introduced in France in 2016, food poverty campaigners in the UK have argued that similar measures should be adopted here to prevent edible food being wasted when millions of people are going hungry.
According to the Food Foundation, a total of 7.3 million adults and 2.6 million children experienced food poverty in April 2022.
A Tesco spokesperson said: “Some refrigeration and freezer units at our Stretford Extra store are currently being worked on at by our maintenance teams who will get them back up and running as soon as possible.
“We apologise for any inconvenience caused.”
Feature image – The Manc Group
News
‘Busiest’ Easter bank holiday weekend expected as 19 million people hit the roads
Emily Sergeant
It’s expected to be one of the busiest Easter bank holidays in three years, as millions of people travel across the UK.
With the four-day weekend upon us, and people nationwide prepare to make the journey to visit family or friends over their extra couple of days off work or school, the RAC has now issued one of its annual travel warnings – anticipating that 19 million people could be hitting the roads from this Thursday evening onwards.
It’s all according to a new study of drivers’ spring getaway plans carried out by the RAC and traffic analytics specialists INRIX.
Research is suggesting that traffic will be equally severe on Thursday 17, Good Friday, and Saturday 19 April, with drivers planning around 2.7 million trips every day during that period, but the number of planned trips does drop slightly on Easter Sunday to 2.5 million.
Sadly, that dip is only short-lived, as the number of trips increases once again to a further 2.7 million on bank holiday Monday as millions of people look to return home.
19 million people are expected to hit the roads over the Easter bank holiday weekend / Credit: Geograph | Pxfuel
To make matters even worse, it’s thought that a further 6.2 million journeys are anticipated at some point over the Easter bank holiday weekend, but drivers planning these trips are still unsure exactly when they’ll travel.
The ‘notorious British weather’ is likely to be a big factor in travel decision making, according to the RAC.
INRIX expects that tomorrow (Thursday 17) will be the worst day for traffic, when jams are likely to increase by nearly a third (30%) more than usual.
Meanwhile, on Good Friday, the lengthiest hold-ups are expected between 11am to 1pm, so drivers are therefore being advised to start their trips as early as possible in the morning, or delay them until later in the afternoon.
Motorists are being warned to plan their journeys in advance / Credit: pxfuel
“The bank holiday weekend clashes with the end of the Easter break for many schools, which we think will change the nature of this year’s getaway,” admitted RAC breakdown spokesperson, Alice Simpson.
“Although journey numbers are still very high, we’re anticipating more day trips and weekend breaks than people heading off on one and two-week stints… [so] this could lead to a ‘hat-trick of hold-ups’ on Thursday, Friday and Saturday as drivers visit family and friends.
“But while getaway journeys may be shorter in length, we’re still expecting to see extremely high levels of traffic from Thursday onwards, with the greatest number of Easter getaway trips planned for three years.”
Alice warned that drivers should expect queues if they ‘don’t plan the best time to set off’.
“It’s always best to travel as early as possible in the morning or later in the day when most of the traffic has eased,” she added.
Featured Image – Geograph
News
Onlookers ‘in tears’ after tiny duckling rescued from storm drain in beauty spot
Daisy Jackson
The RSPCA has shared a heartwarming video of a reunion between a tiny duckling and his mum, after the baby bird fell into a storm drain.
The charity, with the help of staff in the nearby Grandpa Greene’s Luxury Ice Cream Parlour, managed to fish the tiny bird out of the storm drain in a painstaking two-hour-long operation.
Miraculously, the duckling was unharmed, and his mum was waiting nearby on the canal in Saddleworth ready to be reunited with her baby.
The RSPCA has now thanked the staff member who helped rescue the duckling, and issued a warning to the public to keep dogs on a lead when near wildlife, believing the poor bird was chased by a dog before falling down the five-feet-high grid.
The rescue operation too place in Diggle last Wednesday 9 April, with Animal Rescue Officer Lee Ferrans taking on the ‘long and painstaking’ process of tempting the duckling into a net.
Lee said: “I wasn’t able to lift the grid so the only thing I could do was push an extendable pole straight down and try to catch the duckling in a net. There wasn’t a lot of room for manoeuvre and the net kept catching on all the debris.
“Just when I thought I’d been successful, the duckling kept disappearing into a drain on one side and then popping out again. A member of staff from Grandpa Greene’s had just finished her shift and came across to the other side of the canal to help me. I unscrewed the top of the pole with the net and held it down on one side of the drain while she used another section to gently encourage the bird to go into the net.
“It was quite a long and painstaking rescue but we eventually managed to bring the little one back up safely after more than two hours.”
The pair then placed the duckling into a cardboard box before heading further up the canal to reunite them with their mother and six sibling ducklings.
The adult duck ‘instantly recognised’ the chirping and swam straight towards it.
Lee added: “A little crowd had gathered and as the family were reunited people were shedding tears. It was a really lovely moment to see them all back together.
“I’d especially like to thank the member of staff from Grandpa Greene’s who offered an extra pair of hands – I couldn’t have done it without her – and to all the people in the area who stopped and were concerned.
“Storm drains can be a bit of a menace for ducklings, especially at this time of the year when there are babies around, and this brood was only a few days old.”
Georgina Pellant -
19th July 2022 
