Giving away surplus food is sensible, not radical. It isn’t original, either...

I was, I admit, somewhat disappointed when I saw the final shortlist for the Ashdown Prize. Yes, they were all terribly sensible, but radical? No, not really, unless you consider sensible to be the equivalent of radical. And, given that I am probably one of the least obvious to be described as a radical - I have some seemingly radical views on the importance of process, but radical bureaucracy is probably an oxymoron - if I don’t think that something is radical, it probably isn’t.

And of the three proposals, probably the least radical was to oblige supermarkets and the like to give surplus usable food to charities for distribution.

I therefore wasn’t terribly surprised to see it win.

It’s not a new idea, the French already do it, although I haven't seen anything that indicates how successful it has been. And yes, I understand that radical and original are not the same thing.

But I had heard the idea somewhere before. So, I dredged my memory and rediscovered this;

148. Another fiscal option already operated in some countries is to offer tax deductions for redistribution schemes. In the US, which has extensive networks for food redistribution on a far larger scale than European operations, Section 170(e)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code allows certain businesses to earn a tax deduction for donating food and can claim tax breaks on shipments of food if donated food is transported using spare capacity in delivery vehicles. Feeding the 5,000 noted that government incentives for diverting surplus food for human consumption are rare in EU countries, although France is reportedly moving towards tax breaks for businesses that donate their food for charitable redistribution. The idea of exercising such fiscal options was described by FareShare as potentially “transformational” if it succeeded in creating an economic incentive for private operators to redistribute food, beyond the current moral incentive.

Good, eh? And where did this come from?

The answer is, a House of Lords report called “Counting the Cost of Food Waste: EU Food Waste Prevention”, published by the European Union Committee, Sub-Committee D. Their conclusion was that;

there are fiscal tools available to support the redistribution of surplus edible food, ranging from value added tax (VAT) exemptions to tax deductions and tax breaks.

The report was published in 2014, and moved in the House of Lords by none other than the Chair of the Sub-Committee, one Baroness Scott of Needham Market, a name which seems strangely familiar. That’s right, the person I am astoundingly blessed to be married to.

And whilst I would be delighted to see the idea come into practice, and it will help some people who need help badly, it isn’t radical. Finding a way of helping people to reach a level where they don’t need food banks, now that would be radical...