More than 1,000 charities across the UK have signed an open letter to prime minister Rishi Sunak calling for funds to help surplus food reach people in hunger, rather than being sent to landfill or anaerobic digestion.
They have backed calls by redistribution charity FareShare, which is calling for £25m per year from the government which it claims could deliver 42,500 tonnes of surplus food – the equivalent of 100 million meals – to those experiencing food insecurity.
The charity, which has co-ordinated the action ahead of the next budget on 15 March, said they would make it cost-neutral for farmers and food businesses to redistribute their surplus food by paying for labour, packaging and transport.
In 2018, then environment secretary Michael Gove announced a £15m pilot scheme to subsidise the redistribution of edible food surplus and put a stop to what he called the “environmental, economic and moral folly” of good food going to waste.
It followed The Grocer’s long-running Waste Not Want Not campaign, which cited the cost of redistribution for companies in the supply chain as one of the main barriers for tackling food waste and helping food poverty.
However, government funding was axed after the pilot scheme ended, and despite two recommendations from the Efra Committee it has yet to be reinstated.
FareShare said its polling had found almost 90% of the public believed surplus food should be donated to people and charities, and almost 80% think the government should do more to help charities access surplus food, with the amount of food wasted in the UK enough to feed every single person in the UK three meals a day, plus a snack, for a month.
“Every day, more and more people struggle to feed themselves and their families,” said FareShare CEO Lindsay Boswell. “Charities providing food and services to communities hit by the cost of living crisis struggle to keep up with skyrocketing demand. Meanwhile, a staggering amount of good-to-eat food is going to waste on farms and in factories.”
“We have yet to meet a politician who does not support the idea that surplus food should be used to strengthen our communities before it becomes waste, and we have had lots of positive responses. But what is needed is action and action now. The charities that rely on FareShare’s food provide vital community care, ultimately saving the government money. They all agree, and the public agrees: it’s time the government stepped up and turned these warm words into reality.”
Last week FareShare announced M&S commercial director George Wright would be taking over from Boswell, who is stepping down in July after 13 years at the helm.
Writing in The Grocer last week after attending a visit from King Charles to a London food redistribution depot run by the Felix Project, which runs FareShare’s operations in London, editor Adam Leyland said: “Surely human consumption is a better social, economic and environmental outcome than anaerobic digestion?
“We need some of those incentives redirected towards subsidising food redistribution, after the government scandalously pulled the plug on the already watered down £1m subsidy it gave to FareShare following The Grocer’s Waste Not Want Not campaign.”
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