CHEF Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall has exposed the amount of edible food being thrown away at supermarkets in a midnight raid at Chipping Sodbury's Waitrose store.

Food campaigner Hugh jumped over a wall at the back of the store with skip raiders Sam Joseph and Catie Jarman and a film crew to investigate how much waste had been dumped outside the branch.

Filming for BBC series War on Waste, Hugh found crates of edible bananas which had been left out as rubbish as well as bags of salads, oranges and Heston Blumenthal ready meals.

He said: "This is quite shocking.

"This branch of Waitrose has binned hundreds of pounds worth of perfectly good food tonight. But that is not the message they are giving out to customers."

The chef also filmed at Tesco Express on Station Road in Yate in an episode aired tonight (Monday, November 9) which focused on food being waste by supermarkets. Outside the store they found beer, chocolates and mineral water all within date.

Hugh, who runs the River Cottage restaurant, admitted the midnight raids were not legal but there was little danger of further action as supermarkets did not want the public to know how much food was being thrown away.

Waitrose said half of its stores had arrangements with local charities to take surplus food. The Chipping Sodbury store, which opened in October 2013, does not have such an arrangement.

The company's policy states: "We want all our food to be eaten -​ ​whether that's by our customers, partners (employees) or those in need. ​​We​ ​​work hard to predict how much food we will need; then we reduce prices as food nears its use by date.

"Our ambition is for ​all ​our ​shops and depots to have an arrangement in place with a​ local organisation, such as a charity or social enterprise, ​to donate food before it goes past its use by date. While our shops are able to find a​ ​solution that suits the needs of the local community, not all of them have an arrangement in place yet, so if you're interested in collecting from us, please contact Fooddonationenquiries@waitrose.co.uk"

Tesco's pledge to reduce food waste is one of three of the UK's largest retailer's main ambitions.

It says it tries to minimise waste where possible, donates surplus food to local charities and turns bakery waste into animal feed.

Hugh has launched a website wastenotuk.com calling on supermarkets to reduce their food waste.