The first UK roundtable bringing together retailers and charities meets to discuss how to cut food waste is taking place at Defra today (3 July).
The roundtable, chaired by Environment Secretary, Caroline Spelman, aims to encourage retailers to work with charities like FareShare and FoodCycle in order to prevent food going to waste.
Major UK retailers including Tesco, ASDA, Morrisons, M&S, Sainsbury’s, Waitrose, Co-op, Boots Alliance as well as the British Retail Consortium, the Institute of Grocery Distribution, the Food and Drink Federation have joined the roundtable to discuss the implementation of a framework that will make reducing and preventing food waste much easier.
Approximately 15 million tonnes of food is thrown away every year in the UK by households, manufacturers, retailers and the hospitality sector combined – enough to fill Wembley Stadium nine times. The roundtable hopes to see an agreement between retailers and charities so that food still within its use-by date but no longer fit for sale (due to damaged packaging, past sell-by date, or over-ordered for example) will be logged on a database for participating charities to redistribute.
Many retailers already rely on charities to take away their surplus food, but this is the first time a major roundtable has been set up for both sides to discuss how to best implement a central working framework.
Environment Secretary, Caroline Spelman said:“Preventing food waste protects the environment, helps communities and makes good business sense. Charities and retailers are already working together to make great use of surplus food and I’m hosting the roundtable today to look at new ways to make the system work even better.”
It is hoped that if supermarkets and retailers give their surplus food to charities, they will not only save money by reducing the amount of food waste sent to landfill, but will also support charities alleviating food poverty in local communities.
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