The crates of meat - fresh chunky salmon steaks, fillet steak - as well as sacks full of Rooster potatoes and fresh veg, will go to projects helping vulnerable people.

Homeless families in temporary accommodation, ex-alcoholics and drug addicts, and people with mental health problems are among those whose recovery will benefit from top quality nutritious food, from leading supermarkets.

Cereal - delivered by Kelloggs, eleven tonnes a month - is often kept back for breakfast clubs, setting children from deprived families up for school. There is plenty more, dried goods, pasta, dairy, desserts. Some goes to community cafes and food projects, some to food banks.

At FareShare Glasgow's warehouse, surplus food which would otherwise be wasted is put to use, distributed to so called 'community food members', saving it from landfill or anaerobic digestion. Much of the distribution is done by volunteers from the groups receiving the food, who gain vital work experience and self-confidence.

Yet across the UK, the charity rescues just two per cent of the edible food surplus for use. FareShare delivered 7,360 tonnes of surplus food in 2014-5, but the estimated waste from the food industry is 400,000 tonnes. Overall, no more than five per cent of this usable food is ever eaten.

The charity's west of Scotland base will next month deliver its millionth meal. It is expanding, fast, opening new hubs in North Lanarkshire and Ayrshire and aiming to deliver regularly in Dumfries. Between January and March 72 tonnes of food were distributed, but in April alone the figure was 40.7.

The supply is almost boundless. Across the UK, FareShare, which operates on a franchise model delivered 7,360 tonnes of surplus food in 2014-5, but the estimated waste from the food industry is 400,000 tonnes. FareShare, the biggest charity in this field by far, rescues just two per cent.

These aren't stale sandwiches left over at the end of the day. The steak is in date until the second week of June, the ham until the 6th. A stack of Irn Bru cans shoulder high would be good for years, but faced being poured away, as the free kilt promotion on the cans expired with the end of the Commonwealth Games.

Much of the food is so-called supplier surplus, delivered in excess to supermarkets to make up for any damage in transit. Some is wrongly labelled, like the Thai curry sauces with instructions in Polish, or the crates of Coca Cola bottles rejected because the grey on the label is slightly the wrong shade.

Tesco sends a daily delivery. Asda now delivers two or three times a week, M&S every Friday.

The community food projects which make use of the food pay £1000 a year to join the scheme. Director of Operations Jim Burns, says they receive food averaging £350 a week, saving between £13,000 and £18,000 annually.

But still one of the most remarkable things about Fareshare is how limited a dent they make in the food waste problem. Scott Crawford, depot manager is ambitious to do more - hence the recent expansion - but needs a bigger warehouse.

France already recycled around 20 times more of its unused food, with incentives to encourage supermarkets to pass it onto charities, but last week it added a stick to the carrot, passing a law which will penalise supermarkets that fail to do this, with fines and even the possibility of two year jail terms for those which fail to do so.

Stuart McMillan, SNP MsP for the West of Scotland has called on cabinet secretary for rural affairs, Richard Lochhead to follow the French government's lead.

Not everyone agrees. The Scottish Retail Consortium says many businesses give food away on a voluntary basis, and the Scottish Government says more waste happens at other stages in the food chain.

Meanwhile a number of nutrition and health experts writing to the Herald today object to the measure on the basis that it doesn't tackle the root causes of food poverty, and has helped normalise food banks in other countries.

The authors, including Flora Douglas, of Aberdeen's Rowett institute of Nutrition and Health, and Pete Ritchie, Director of Nourish Scotland say: "Food banks reliant on donations from supermarkets and the general public cannot sustainably feed the increasing numbers of people facing financial hardship in this country. Nor, in a society which prides itself on progressive values of social justice, should they be expected to."

But the waste goes on. As supermarkets pursue a lean just-in-time model of logistics, anything which cannot be sold causes delays, backing up in warehouses and costing money. John Hinton, executive director of Move On, which runs FareShare in Glasgow explains: "The quickest way to get rid of it is landfill. We offer an alternative for this unwanted food, which is better environmentally, and morally, and helps support people who are living in poverty or on low incomes."

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