Jamie Reed – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jamie Reed on 2016-05-05.

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if she will make it her policy to require supermarkets to donate food to food banks and other charities.

Rory Stewart

I am replying as the Minister with responsibility for food waste.

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 or requirement obliging supermarkets to donate food would not fix the barriers to redistribution. We need to look at the bigger picture. Less than 10% of food wasted in the supply chain is from supermarkets, so we need the whole chain to work together.

Facilitated and supported by government, all major retailers now have arrangements in place to redistribute surplus food. Action taken by retailers to redistribute surplus food includes:

• Morrisons have announced that, from January 2016, any unsold safe food will go to redistribution organisations
• Tesco are making use of an app which links supermarkets with redistribution organisations
• Asda are working with FareShare to redistribute food

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 want to achieve more. Last year, the Secretary of State held a meeting with industry and redistribution organisations to take stock of progress on food redistribution. Outcomes from this include the recent publication of a Redistribution Framework to help facilitate closer working between potential donors and recipients of food surpluses. Research has been commissioned by WRAP to identify where and why waste and surpluses occur in the supply chain to inform further action to increase waste prevention and redistribution.

Following the success of earlier agreements, WRAP launched The Courtauld Commitment 2025 in March. This is an ambitious new agreement that takes a whole food supply chain approach, and will build on the progress we have already made to prevent waste, including through the redistribution of surplus food.