Greg Mulholland – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Greg Mulholland on 2016-03-07.

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if she will bring forward proposals to require supermarkets to donate unsold food to charities.

Rory Stewart

The Government welcomes the redistribution of good quality surplus food to charities that can make sure it goes to people rather than going to waste.

Based on our experience, a simple law would not fix the barriers to redistribution. We need to look at the bigger picture. The retail sector is responsible for 210,000 tonnes of the total 4.1m tonnes of food waste in the food and drink supply chain, so we need the whole chain to work together.

Instead, we favour a voluntary approach. Signatories to the voluntary Courtauld Commitment with industry have reported a 74% increase between 2012 and end 2014, and we expect it to increase further.

We expect the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) to launch a new agreement, Courtauld 2025, later this month. The new agreement will take a whole food supply chain approach, and will build on the progress we have already made.