Hansard

Waste Management: Food

Volume 701: debated on Thursday 22 May 2008

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Lord Dykes

asked Her Majesty's Government:

What progress has been made by the Waste and Resources Action Programme to reduce the estimated £8 billion-worth of food discarded annually by British consumers. [HL3611]

The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
(Lord Rooker)

WRAP and its partners are running the “Love Food Hate Waste” consumer-facing campaign to address this issue directly. The campaign is being delivered in partnership with the Women's Institute, local authorities, the UK grocery sector, the food industry, government and organisations such as the Food Standards Agency. Its aim is to develop practical advice, to help us all get the most from the food we buy, and to waste less of it.

The campaign highlights quick and easy things that consumers can do to reduce the amount of food thrown away, including better planning before going shopping, and storing perishables in the fridge. WRAP is also in discussion with retailers to extend in-store advice about home storage. If followed, this should prolong the life of the food that is purchased.

On 8 May 2008, WRAP published a report entitled, The Food We Waste. This report provides an objective assessment of the amounts and types of food that we buy, but do not eat. Key findings from the research are that, in the UK, we throw away around one third of the food we buy, and of that, 61 per cent (4.1 million tonnes a year) was avoidable waste. The most common reason for food being wasted is that it is left unused until it goes off or out of date; this accounts for 61 per cent (2.5 million tonnes) of the avoidable food waste. Of this, almost 1 million tonnes is not even touched, and at least a tenth (340,000 tonnes) is still in date. We also cook and prepare too much, resulting in an additional 1.6 million tonnes of food waste a year.

This research report will help the campaign to focus on the key areas for future behaviour change.

Progress on the campaign, which was launched in November 2007, will be evaluated with the rest of WRAP's 2006-08 business plan and will be set out in detail in WRAP's annual review for 2007-08, due to be published in October 2008.