Grocery sector defends 6.9bn in waste arisings

The UKs grocery and food manufacturing sectors have defended their commitment to waste prevention after research published by the Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP) today suggested they produced up to 6.9 billion of food and packaging waste per year.

This is among the key findings in a report with data from the 2011 period, which WRAP says provides a more robust estimate of food, drink, and other waste flows from the grocery retail supply chain.

The report looks at waste across the supply chain and shows how waste is managed, where food is being redistributed and where it is used as an ingredient in animal feed. It goes on to assess other materials arising from the production of food.

Responding to the reports findings on waste, the Food and Drink Federation (FDF) said WRAP had offered a contribution to its understanding of waste arisings, but said its members had almost halved the amount of food and packaging waste sent to landfill, from around 17% in 2006 to 9% in 2009.

Andrew Opie, British Retail Consortium Director of Food and Sustainability also emphasised the achivements retailers had made: Retailers and food manufacturers have already cut supply chain waste by 8.8% since 2009 and have recently committed to reduce this waste by a further 3%, or 8% relative to anticipated growth.

Supply

However, WRAP estimates there is currently 6.5 million tonnes of waste arising in the grocery retail supply chain, 3.9 million tonnes of which was sourced from food and drink manufacturers. Meanwhile, packaging is the retail sectors main source of waste, which accounts for some 1.2Mt of the total figure.

The data shows 5,800 tonnes of food is redistributed to charities and 450,000 tonnes sent to animal feed, while 3.0Mt is recycled, 0.5Mt used for thermal with energy recovery, 2.3Mt spread on land, and 400,000 tonnes disposed of via thermal treatment without recovery or landfill.

Summarising the findings, the report reads: Households spent some 101bn on food and drink in the UK in 2011. Some of the food and drink that is produced by manufacturers is not sold directly to intended customers (grocery retailers and wholesalers) or consumers (households) but managed in other ways, which can result in waste.

Richard Swannell, director at WRAP claimed: This new research from WRAP can help deliver significant benefits for businesses and the environment. Armed with this knowledge, businesses, and the supply chain as a whole, can more readily identify where problems are arising, enabling them to find the solutions to reduce their waste and make large financial and environmental savings.

Targets

WRAPs report follows on from its 2010 publication Waste arisings in the supply of food and drink to UK households which assessed the 2008 data.

The research follows a supply chain target introduced into the second phase of WRAPs voluntary grocery sector waste reduction initiative, the Courtauld Commitment to reduce packaging weight by 10%, household food and drink waste by 4% and supply chain waste by 5%.

A final report on the Phase 2 agreement is to be published in the coming weeks, while new legislation requiring Scottish businesses to segregate food waste and other recyclable materials for separate collection will come into effect from January 2014 (see letsrecycle.com story).