No 10’s proposed national endeavour to end avoidable food waste, aligned to the circular economy agenda, is a significant moment for our sector. Framed around growth, resource efficiency and net zero, it recognises that food waste is systemic.
But if this is to be a genuine national endeavour, redistribution must be understood in the round.
At The Bread and Butter Thing, we support over 100,000 households each week through community food clubs, operating from Maidstone to Northumberland. Members collect a regular food shop through the club, then top up in local retailers to complete their weekly shop. We are not replacing supermarkets. We work alongside them, helping stretch budgets so households can continue spending locally.
Health matters
Because members engage regularly, we see how surplus food interacts with lives shaped by rising costs, fragile finances and health pressures.
Nearly two thirds of members strongly agree that accessing redistributed food through our clubs helps them save money, which in turn makes them significantly more likely to be able to manage small unexpected expenses without borrowing. Around 75% say they could manage a £20 unexpected cost. Only around 33% could manage £100.
That gap is where many working families now live.
The health link is equally stark. Among households with almost nothing left after housing and energy costs, around half report poor mental health and nearly half report poor physical health. As financial headroom increases, those rates fall. Close to four in 10 members strongly agree they eat more fruit and vegetables as a result of using our clubs.
For No 10’s national endeavour, this should matter.
Tackling food waste is not only about emissions. It is about how supply chain decisions affect household stability and health.
Much of the current activity still sits downstream of the real problem. Good intentions are not the issue. The challenge is that we have built a system that make it easier to waste than to feed people.
Serious surplus solutions
While surplus exists, how it is handled should be a policy choice. Edible food can be diverted into anaerobic digestion because it is operationally simpler and contractually embedded. Or, it can be redirected into communities first, in line with the food waste hierarchy.
At present, it is also cheaper to waste food than to feed people.
If government is serious about prevention, redistribution must be recognised as part of the economic and health architecture of food waste reform. That means clearer transparency on where edible surplus goes, consistent reporting standards across supply chains, and aligning incentives so that feeding people is not the more complicated option.
Too often, solutions are designed at a distance from where the consequences land. On the ground, small reductions in weekly food costs reduce borrowing, improve diet and ease mental strain. That is measurable prevention.
Redistribution is not a substitute for income reform, and it must never normalise structural food insecurity. But dismissing it as a sticking plaster misses its preventative impact. In a high-cost environment, prevention rarely looks dramatic. It looks like steady pressure relief. It looks like families staying just above crisis rather than tipping into it.
If this is to be a true national endeavour, we need to stop treating redistribution as an environmental afterthought and start recognising it for what it is: prevention policy in action.
Because the real measure of success is not just tonnes diverted. It is whether we build a food system where feeding people is easier than wasting food.
Vic Harper is CEO of The Bread and Butter Thing
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