Much of the waste produced by the food chain in the UK each year is still fit to eat, according to the national food charity FareShare.
“DEFRA has no policy for managing and reducing the 17 million tonnes of waste produced by the food chain each year. As a result, this massive mountain of waste goes to landfill,” said Tony Lowe, the chief executive of FareShare.
“However, estimates suggest that a quarter of this food is still fit for purpose and perfectly good to eat, and as a result, can be used to feed the many thousands of vulnerable and disadvantaged people that FareShare support each day,” said Lowe.
FareShare has been assisted with funding from the Government’s Landfill Tax Credit Scheme in the past. As a result of a review of the scheme, this funding has been withdrawn and no alternative help has been offered by DEFRA.
“At a time when the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has just published a report highlighting that the political challenge posed by social deprivation is likely to intensify in the future, it makes no sense for an organisation helping to relieve this deprivation to be refused support by the Government.”
“The new BREW (business Resource Efficiency and Waste) programme, launched in November by Margaret Beckett, is worth over £284m, however the only initiative in programme towards the food industry waste mountain has been to establish research projects into minimising the food packaging used by supermarkets,” said Lowe, “despite diverting thousands of tonnes of food from landfill for ten years, FareShare has been deprived of essential funding for work that is both environmentally useful and socially inclusive.”
“We have attempted to have discussions with DEFRA to ascertain how they are gong to make inroads into this growing environmental and social problem, but found both the Food Directorate and the Waste Directorate have no plans and are unwilling to meet us. As a result of this neglect, we will have to seek alternative sources of funding, or seriously curtail our operations”, concluded Lowe.
“DEFRA has no policy for managing and reducing the 17 million tonnes of waste produced by the food chain each year. As a result, this massive mountain of waste goes to landfill,” said Tony Lowe, the chief executive of FareShare.
“However, estimates suggest that a quarter of this food is still fit for purpose and perfectly good to eat, and as a result, can be used to feed the many thousands of vulnerable and disadvantaged people that FareShare support each day,” said Lowe.
FareShare has been assisted with funding from the Government’s Landfill Tax Credit Scheme in the past. As a result of a review of the scheme, this funding has been withdrawn and no alternative help has been offered by DEFRA.
“At a time when the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has just published a report highlighting that the political challenge posed by social deprivation is likely to intensify in the future, it makes no sense for an organisation helping to relieve this deprivation to be refused support by the Government.”
“The new BREW (business Resource Efficiency and Waste) programme, launched in November by Margaret Beckett, is worth over £284m, however the only initiative in programme towards the food industry waste mountain has been to establish research projects into minimising the food packaging used by supermarkets,” said Lowe, “despite diverting thousands of tonnes of food from landfill for ten years, FareShare has been deprived of essential funding for work that is both environmentally useful and socially inclusive.”
“We have attempted to have discussions with DEFRA to ascertain how they are gong to make inroads into this growing environmental and social problem, but found both the Food Directorate and the Waste Directorate have no plans and are unwilling to meet us. As a result of this neglect, we will have to seek alternative sources of funding, or seriously curtail our operations”, concluded Lowe.
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