Michael Gove Wants You to Stop Wasting Your Food

Michael Gove thinks you need to write a shopping list next time

The secretary of state for environment, food, and rural affairs is partnering with the government’s food surplus and waste champion — a person, called Ben Elliott, who also runs a luxury lifestyle group focussed on booking ritzy dinners and long haul flights — to encourage supermarkets, suppliers, and the people to stop chucking away so much food. Gove, who was recently put on blast by leading industry bodies over Brexit and opined that those in poverty eat cheap, unhealthy food out of choice rather than, well, poverty, now wants the country to turn its attention to shopping lists, food storage, and setting its fridges to the correct temperature. Key elements of his ‘step up to the plate’ solution to what he and Elliott advisedly call “the moral, economic, and environmental scandal of food waste” include supporting businesses in following a food waste reduction plan, personal pledges to “be a Food Value Champion at work and at home, buying only what I need and eating what I buy, wherever I am,” and using shopping lists at the supermarket.

One of Gove’s more readily implementable solutions is partnerships with food waste charities, which include the Felix Project, supporter of Massimo Bottura’s Refettorio Felix and a partner with the likes of chef Merlin Labron-Johnson and social media influencer Clerkenwell Boy. Future action on food waste will partly rely on these “big players from the worlds of food retail and hospitality,” with a launch symposium on 13 May running in conjunction with the Victoria and Albert Museum’s ‘Bigger Than the Plate’ exhibition, which starts on 18 May. There’s mileage in some of this that could start to reverse the reported 10.2 million tonnes of food waste per year; some of it sounds like fiddling with the fridge temperature while Rome burns, especially with several supermarkets — one of the supply chain’s most wasteful junctures — reluctant to sign up. [Gov.uk]

And in other news...

• One of the world’s best chefs, Dominique Crenn, has shared her breast cancer diagnosis on Instagram. The chef, whose San Francisco restaurant Atelier Crenn has three Michelin stars and is one of Eater’s 38 essentials in America, said:

As I work through this new challenge I will be in my kitchen as much as humanely possible because being there, engaged in my craft, and with those I love so dearly is what fuels me.

For all the women who have been on this journey before me and now with me, my heart is with you.

• Chef’s Table star Magnus Nilsson took out a feature slot in the Los Angeles Times to announce the closure of his two-Michelin-starred restaurant, Fäviken, in Sweden. The interview details Nilsson’s frank reasoning: “I am not going to lie, I am a little bit tired after all this time pushing the development of the restaurant forward.” The stubborn insularity of Nilsson’s project has won it global acclaim: the intensity of that insularity is likely a contributing factor to its closure, as well as serving 30-course meals nightly. [LA Times]
• U.K. fake burger specialist Moving Mountains will launch a hot dog made with sunflower seeds, carrot, onion and paprika. The plan is to make hot dogs “desirable again.” Hello, America. [Guardian]
• Ever wanted to sample cheese made with bacteria formerly resident on Heston Blumenthal’s skin? Your time is now. [Big Hospitality]
• Italian restaurant chain Zizzi has hired an Instagrammer-in-residence to take pictures of its food. [Metro]
• Good Food Society will open its latest ritzy restaurant on Baker Street with Caffe Cinquanta, an Italian-inspired outfit. The group, which recently closed Turkish restaurant Yosma on the same street, intending to relocate it to Soho, promises a range of pastas and Italian cocktails. [Big Hospitality]
• The company that makes Oreos is considering adding CBD to its biscuits. The truffle oil of drugs really does go on everything. [The Takeout]
• There’s no way a Starbucks employee is spelling Daenerys Targaryen correctly first time round. [Eater]
• Good tweet: