WRAP welcomes PMs involvement on food waste

The government strategy, entitled ‘Food Matters: Towards a Strategy for the 21st Century', looks at issues including the food supply chain, food security, healthier diets and also food packaging and waste.

“WRAP is working with members of the public via its Love Food Hate Waste campaign. So far, according to our research, 3.5m households have taken action on tackling food waste,” she added.

The Cabinet Office enquiry into food – which was commissioned by Brown in September 2007 – requested the formation of a Food Strategy Task Force to monitor developments in the food market and a new packaging initiative as part of the 2007 Waste Strategy for England.

Speaking in the introduction to the report, Mr Brown said: “We need to take measures to lessen the environmental impact of the food that we eat, producing more food with fewer resources and fewer greenhouse gas emissions.”

Strategy

The 140-page strategy is seen as an overarching statement of Government food policy and outlines the action it intends to take to combat the four million tonnes of food wasted each year.

Under the strategy, a Cabinet Office-led Food Strategy Task Force would be charged with publishing updates on food markets and reporting to the Prime Minister in the summers of 2009 and 2010.

Chaired and supported by the Cabinet Office, the Task Force will also bring together senior officials from organisations such as Defra, BERR and the Department for International Development (DfID) to research the best ways to provide healthy food and drive forward the messages of the report.

Packaging

This Task Force would be introduced alongside a new strategy to deal with the 4.7 million tonnes of waste food packaging, which will be set within the framework provided by the Waste Strategy for England (2007).

The strategy will aim to improve improve information flows between manufacturers, retailers, consumers, local authorities and re-processors, as well as creating incentives to encourage reduction in the amount of packaging used and also promoting reuse and recycling.

Defra and BERR will work together to prevent packaging that does not comply with the Essentials Requirements provisions of the EU Directive and UK Regulations entering the market, as well as increasing availability of recycling services, ensuring packaging is designed with resource recovery, reuse and recyclability in mind and improving the economics of collection.

The Government is also keen to open discussions for a new voluntary agreement to achieve a target of a net reduction of packaging for 2012 and a new objective to encourage the use of recycled materials.

Production

Today Hilary Benn, secretary of state for environment, spoke of the Government's proposals for combating food waste and how the major concern created by the hike in global food prices can be averted by increased productivity and efficiency.

He said: “Recent events in world food markets have shown that continued access to affordable food is not something that can be taken for granted. The long term challenges in this area are significant but can be overcome.”

Response

The Government's strategy has met with acclaim from WRAP, who supplied the majority of statistics following the publication of its The Food We Waste report in May. (see letsrecycle.com story)

However, the publication did not receive unanimous support, as Liberal Democrat Shadow Environment Secretary Steve Webb attacked the Government's relationship with supermarkets and accused it of failing to get tough on big chains when it came to food waste.

Mr Webb said: “Supermarkets make it harder for householders to avoid food waste, while throwing away large quantities of edible food through poor stock management. They refuse to stock small portions, which are essential for the growing number of one-person households, and offer too many buy-one-get-one-free deals on perishable goods.”

Global Renewables 

The report also prompted critcism from Australian-owned waste management company Global Renewables, which claimed that the Government has “missed an opportunity” to consider the environmental impact of food waste.

David Singh, managing director, said: “If the Government is tackling food consumption it also needs to look at the environmental damage from waste and have a joined up strategy. To do this and make significant cuts in methane emissions local authorities should be urged to consider the whole spectrum of waste recovery techniques – some of which actually offset total emissions and produce a large amount of renewable energy. 

“Currently only one UK waste authority is putting in this level of waste recovery. So to call for less waste but not have a UK-wide answer for waste management is a missed opportunity,” he added.