Unopened food filmed in bin at back of Hounslow Lidl store

Packaged food that appears to be unopened has been filmed in a food waste bin at the back of what the person filming says is a Lidl supermarket in Hounslow.

Footage shared with UB1UB2 was reportedly taken on Saturday 10 October. It shows large cardboard bins in a back-of-store area filled with boxes of cereal, packets of crisps, coffee and jars of Nutella, along with bottled water stacked in crates nearby.

The man who filmed it said he asked staff whether he could take any of the food and was told company policy meant he could not.

Why the food was thrown away is not known

It is not clear why the items ended up in the bin, and Lidl has not commented publicly on the footage. The exact store has not been confirmed.

Supermarkets can throw away stock for a number of reasons. These include damaged or broken packaging, product recalls, best before or use by dates passing, and problems with the cold chain or storage. Food that looks fine from the outside can still be withdrawn for safety or legal reasons.

Retailers also generally do not let members of the public take items from their waste. The usual reasons given are food safety, liability if someone becomes ill, and the security of back-of-store areas.

Lidl's surplus food schemes

Lidl has run a food redistribution scheme called Feed It Back with the charity platform Neighbourly since August 2017. The supermarket says the scheme links all of its stores with good causes in their areas, such as charities, food banks, community cafes and soup kitchens, which can collect surplus food.

Lidl says that, to date, it has donated more than 43 million meals through surplus food and customer donations. It has also put food donation boxes in its stores, where shoppers can leave items for local charities.

Separately, in 2019 the supermarket rolled out its Too Good To Waste boxes to its stores across Great Britain. These are boxes of fruit and vegetables that are no longer at their best but still fit to eat, sold at a low price to cut waste.

Through Neighbourly, individual Lidl branches across London have their own pages where local charities can sign up to collect surplus food. Food banks and community groups in Hounslow that want to receive donations can apply through the platform.

A wider debate

The footage adds to a long-running debate about how much edible food supermarkets throw away, at a time when many households and food banks in West London are still feeling the cost of living squeeze.

Campaigners have long called for stricter rules to make retailers give away more surplus food. Supermarkets say that most unsold food that is safe to eat is already redistributed or sold at a discount, and that some items have to be thrown away for safety or quality reasons.

Until Lidl says more, it is not known whether the food in the Hounslow bin could have been donated, or why it was thrown away.