Count Kostov is in business: this time its fruit and veg.

The cost of wasted fruit and veg is £11 billion, or £420 per household each year. Farmers throw out 20%, because it does not meet supermarket standards. Supermarkets throw out another 10%. Of the 70% remaining, we throw out another 40% because when push comes to shove we would rather not eat up our greens before diving into the bannoffee pie and cream. So only about 40% of what is grown gets to our guts. (Do the maths: 70% times 40% results in 28% etc..)

There are several ways of looking at this. One is that the supermarkets are mean and nasty. Another is that we are fat and idle. And there is just a small possibility we might want to be grateful to the supermarkets for saving us from deformed carrots and beetroot. Anyone who saves the planet from beetroot deserves a medal.

The easy way to find out what is going on behind the numbers is to do Count Kostov's test of all such research:
- look for the venal start
- find the meadow mayonnaise moment
- reach the illogical conclusion

For the venal start, we need look no further than the sponsors of the research: The Soil Association. They are not exactly friends of the big supermarkets, so we all know what the research is going to have to prove: the big and nasty supermarkets are callously exploiting the doughty British farmer. This victim of the corporate industrial machine valiantly gets by, hiring hundreds of illegal immigrants to pick fruit and veg in the Lincolnshire priaire because no Brit can be arsed to work so hard for so little when a giro and crack are easy alternatives.

Now the meadow mayonnaise moment: 30% of our crops are thrown away, and as much wasted in the home. And its all the fault of the supermarkets who won't buy crap from farmers.

The illogical conclusion is, in this case, highly illogical: there isn't one. We are simply left to feel morally superior to the supermarkets and go tut tut over our bran and raisin breakfast while we read the Independent. There could have been some conlcusions. How about farmers selling their product direct or establishing alternative channels to market? After all, they have vast amounts of "free" product to dump. Given supermarket prices, they should be able to undercut the big beasts by miles. £1.99 for 150 grammes of watercress or rocket, which grow like weeds, should not be hard to beat. But it is easier to believe in a supermarket conspiracy and farmer victims.


And Count Kostov has not even started on the cost of the Common Agricultural Policy......