Almost 4,000 people have called on prime minister Liz Truss to stick to the government’s promises on mandatory food waste reporting, amid fears the policy could be ditched as part of a government bonfire of red tape.
First promised by then environment secretary Michael Gove in 2018, the proposals have already faced delays because of the pandemic. A consultation ended this week, with the government planning to bring in mandatory reporting for major companies from 2025.
If introduced, England would become the first country in the world to require all large food businesses to report on food waste.
However, campaign groups this week expressed concerns that the proposed regulation could be scrapped or watered down, with the consultation also considering an option to “enhance current voluntary agreements” on reporting, rather than make them mandatory.
Truss has already indicated she plans to reduce unnecessary regulation with some industry sources hoping that reporting requirements on areas such as food waste will be allowed to remain voluntary.
However, this week it emerged nearly 4,000 responses to the consultation had been submitted via an email action co-ordinated by campaign group Feedback.
Its response to the consultation calls for the proposals to go further by bringing forward mandatory reporting for all large and medium-sized businesses to 2024 and for it to be expanded to include farms by 2025.
Feedback pointed to the latest figures from Wrap showing an estimated 7.2 million tonnes of food waste and surplus occurs in UK businesses, when primary production is included, even greater than the 6.9 million tonnes at household level.
It also highlighted further figures from Wrap showing in 2021, 70% of Food Waste Reduction Roadmap signatories were still not reporting food waste data publicly.
Feedback has backing from other groups including the Sustainable Restaurant Association, Nature Friendly Farming Network, Feedback and Wildlife & Countryside Link.
Tesco has also been a major supporter of mandatory reporting, having become the first supermarket to report its food waste figures in 2013.
“It’s madness that millions of tonnes of food are going to waste while we face climate crisis and rising food prices,” said Feedback senior policy and campaigns manager Martin Bowman.
“After almost a decade of remarkable public pressure, almost all businesses still fail to disclose their food waste data. Regulation will break this deadlock – levelling the playing field so businesses don’t have to fear reporting in isolation, but also ensure transparency and accountability for the public.
”Gaining valuable data will help target interventions and measure progress – to save businesses money and unlock huge environmental and food security benefits.”
No comments yet