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...

Ros in the Lords: Food Waste

Regular readers will know that, for some time, Ros has been working to raise awareness of food waste, following the publication of a seminal report by the Select Committee that she chairs.

This week, she returned to the subject by means of a Short Debate, seeking to keep up the pressure on the Government...

Baroness Scott of Needham Market (LD): My Lords, it is almost two years since the EU Energy and Environment Sub-Committee for energy and the environment, which I chair, published its report into food waste. At the time, it was enormously gratifying for the committee to produce a report that generated so much interest. The press office tells me it had more coverage than any other Lords Select Committee report.

The fact that around one-third of all food produced in the world is wasted is truly shocking. The waste of land, labour, water, carbon and all the other resources is truly staggering. When people around the world are going hungry, when the global population is set to increase and when many thousands of people here in the UK do not have enough to eat, this becomes a moral issue, too. It does not matter what sort of political philosophy you have—there is a case to be made for dealing with this as a matter of urgency.

So two years on seems like a good time to see what has happened since. In this time, food waste has rocketed up the agenda and efforts are being made at all levels. I am very grateful to all noble Lords who are speaking in the debate today and very much look forward to hearing from them.

The United Nations sustainable development goals, which were published in September, contain a commitment to halve food waste at the consumer and retailer level and to reduce food losses along the supply chain. The UN goals make a distinction between the two, as we did in our report, but I would like to give an example of where this is no longer quite so clear-cut. The campaigning organisation Feedback has spent several years looking at the supply chains of our major supermarkets. Focusing on Kenya, Peru and Guatemala, it has uncovered evidence of late cancellation of orders and overzealous size and shape specifications resulting in up to half the crop being wasted and massive hardship for farmers.

These were exactly the sort of practices which in UK agriculture had led to the establishment of the Groceries Code Adjudicator in 2013, and it is increasingly clear that farmers in the developing world need protection, too. Is the Minister aware of this issue and would he agree with me that bad behaviour should be stamped out, regardless of whether the farmer is in Norfolk or Nicaragua.

Our report made recommendations aimed at all levels of government. We asked the European Commission to look at areas where it has responsibility—date labelling, the regulations around the feeding of waste to animals, packaging regulations, fish discards, and the use of CAP funds for food waste reduction projects—and we asked it to spearhead work on common definitions, measurements and benchmarks.

Around the same time as we were producing our report, the EU Select Committee reported on the role of national parliaments in EU decision-making. It concluded that national parliaments should have a power to request action as well as to object. Under the leadership of the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, a so-called “green card” procedure was developed with the support of all EU parliaments. I am really pleased that the first-ever green card to be issued in the EU was based on our work on food waste. It was signed by 18 parliamentary chambers.

In December, the Commission published its Circular Economy Package, which includes a section on food waste. That reflects many of the recommendations that were made in our report and in the green card proposal. Will the Minister say whether the Government are minded to support the proposals on the table?

The thread which ran through our 2014 report was the role of the supply chain in generating food waste, and why it is essential to look not just at each stage but at the links between them. The UK is fortunate to have a highly effective think tank—that is what I will call it—WRAP. It is now a charity independent of government and it provides a unique combination of academically rigorous analysis, supply-chain knowledge and campaigning skills. It really excels at developing partnerships and has been at the forefront of doing so with regard to food waste. Its work with the hospitality and food service sector achieved a 3.6% reduction in food waste by its second year. In a sector where an estimated one meal in six is thrown away, it is really important to address this. The food service giant Sodexo has developed some very good initiatives and what strikes me from what it told me is how important it is to get the staff engaged, because, when they are engaged, things begin to happen and it is more effective than just setting targets.

A couple of weeks ago the Times ran an article outlining how top chefs are now moving away from à la carte menus in favour of more limited menu choices. That is exactly to reduce food waste. One Michelin-starred restaurant said it thought it could halve the amount of food it wastes. So regardless of the size of your business there is a clear economic case for dealing with this. This is an area where a lot more could be done, particularly by the large outfits. Will the Government meet WRAP and perhaps me and other Members to discuss what more could be done about this? Clearly, the public sector is an enormous user of these catering services.

Another good example of this partnership is the Courtauld commitment. The voluntary agreement started in 2005 is in its fourth stage and aims to reduce packaging waste as well as food waste. While recognising the limits of the new charitable status of WRAP, I hope that the Government will commit to continue to support its work. I was certainly very taken by a briefing from the campaign group Stop the Rot which talked about how important this is and I know that it, and I suspect some noble Lords here today, would like to see Courtauld do more and be more ambitious.

Retailers are still very reluctant to publish food waste data, so, in this regard, hats off to Tesco, which has been more open about its levels of waste; others should follow suit. Retailers are crucial in reducing supply-chain waste. They impact not only on the growers, as we have heard, but also on the processors of food, and are key influencers of consumer behaviour. Tesco and Asda have done some very interesting work to assess levels of waste of their most popular products and have looked right through the supply chain to see what can be done. It is not rocket science—for example, using bananas that cannot be sold off the shelf as a base for frozen smoothies or using things for soups and sauces makes absolute sense, as does sending bakery waste to animal feed or converting used vegetable oil to biodiesel. The Food and Drink Federation told me that KP is now using potato starch generated from its processes to make products such as wallpaper paste. This is real value added from waste.

Our report highlighted a food waste hierarchy in which food produced for humans should, wherever possible, be eaten by humans—then turned into animal feed, then used to generate energy, then composted and so on to achieve zero to landfill. I think this is one of the most important aspects of this whole debate. Without getting into discussion about the need for food redistribution, of course it makes sense to use this food wisely. FareShare has reported a 30% increase in the food redistributed in the last two years. Indeed, its partnership with Tesco provides 1,700 community groups with meals. The Co-op increased its depot-level redistribution from 85 tonnes to 300 tonnes in the last year.

Marks & Spencer is using an app called Neighbourly that links stores with local charities and in the pilot a single store in Bristol in just six months redistributed 4 tonnes of perfectly good food that otherwise would have gone to anaerobic digestion. FareShare estimates that around 300,000 tonnes of supply-chain food waste could go to feed people instead of feeding animals or going to digesters or landfill. Will the Minister commit to exploring ways of ensuring that the incentives to behave in this way are lined up? We are still a long way behind the US, Belgium, France, Italy and Spain and they all have some sort of fiscal incentive.

While it is true that much household waste occurs at household level, it is a complex issue to tackle. As we uncovered in our evidence, the causes are often rooted in modern life—irregular eating patterns, the weekly shop, a wider variety of food and so on, and much less basic knowledge about food. WRAP has developed the Love Food Hate Waste label and has even exported it to Canada. The retailers have stepped up to the plate on this, but there is still very much to do to demystify date labelling, despite the Food and Drink Federation’s Fresher for Longer initiative.

We have made a lot of progress in the past two years but we are really still only in the foothills of what we need to do to make permanent inroads into the scandalous waste of food. What gives me cause for optimism is that I think that we have developed a sort of ecology. We have the academic rigour and analysis from WRAP; a huge variety of civil society groups, from the Trussell Trust to Stop the Rot; innovative use of technology; a willingness on the part of industry to really see the business case; and the campaigning zeal of people such as Tristram Stuart from Feedback, and celebrities such as Jamie Oliver, who are so effective at mobilising public action. We have done a lot, but there is much more to do.

@BaronessRos in the Lords - EU: Counting the Cost of Food Waste

In her capacity as Chair of the House of Lords European Union Sub-Committee D, Ros has been dealing with the aftermath of the publication of her Committee's report on Food Waste. There have been meetings and conferences, invitations to accept, speeches to make and even a little media coverage. However, the wheels of the House of Lords do turn rather slowly, and despite the fact that the report was published on 6 April, an opportunity to debate it before the House only arose on Thursday evening.

Naturally, Ros opened the debate...

Baroness Scott of Needham Market (LD): My Lords, the scale of the food waste problem that emerged from our inquiry was truly staggering. Around 15 million tonnes of food are wasted in the United Kingdom every year and around 89 million tonnes across the EU. Those are probably conservative estimates of what is recognised as a data-poor area. Our inquiry did not cover food losses in the developing world; they are a rather different although equally pressing matter. Nor did we cover the trickier question of waste through overconsumption.

If one message comes from our report that I would like everyone, including the Government, to understand, it is that there must be a recognition that whatever the technical difficulties of defining and measuring food waste are, these should not distract us from the importance of taking urgent action to address a problem that is not only morally repugnant but unsustainable. It is becoming increasingly recognised that in the years ahead food security will be a very serious matter. Surely it makes sense to start by wasting less of what we already have.

As set out in our report, there are clearly some big issues to be tackled, not least the need to think about the supply chain as a whole rather than thinking about food waste prevention at each stage. Taking this approach helps to deal with the tendency we observed for individual participants in the food supply chain simply to pass the waste elsewhere so that their statistics look good at the expense of someone else’s, but the problem is not addressed.

The picture that emerged was not entirely gloomy. Our evidence uncovered a raft of initiatives and efforts that are being undertaken. It was also clear from our consideration of EU policy that the United Kingdom has taken a lead in this area, due in no small part to the work of WRAP—the Waste and Resources Action Programme. Now, six months on from publication, I will not rehearse the conclusions and recommendations of our report. While they all remain salient, I would like to reflect on some of the developments since publication and then perhaps consider some next steps.

First, a recurring theme that emerged throughout our evidence sessions was that when people and organisations begin to think about food waste, they quickly start to reduce it. For that reason, I was delighted by the degree of media interest in our report and the subsequent debate that it sparked off. Particularly heartening was the response by some individuals, organisations and businesses as a result of that media coverage. Many of them have made contact with me and I have met with quite a few of them. I have spoken at conferences and seminars, including one organised by the Dutch embassy, and I have undertaken a visit to Birds Eye in Lowestoft to try to understand the role that freezing can play in reducing food waste. The week after next we are going to the restaurant chain Nando’s, which is going to demonstrate how it will use technology to redistribute leftover food from its outlets.

Through that dialogue, I have learnt more about what is being developed. For instance, Tesco has taken its 25 most wasted products and taken a whole-supply-chain approach to see what target actions could be taken to reduce that waste; for example, with bananas, it has reduced wastage at the farms by 6% and has changed practices at the warehouse and in store to reduce waste there. Consumers are being educated in how to store bananas and given recipes for what to do with overripe fruit.

Secondly, the excellent work of WRAP has continued. Its completion of a farm-to-fork assessment of the potato supply chain, in collaboration with Co-operative Food and Co-operative Farms, is an example of the kind of study it undertakes. It highlighted that a particularly wasteful point in the supply chain is the packhouse. Here it recommended a review of size specifications, as well as alternative options for those of “abnormal” size; for example, the development of a product range of small roasting potatoes could eliminate more than £250,000 of lost value, based on a sample of 50,000 tonnes.

During our inquiry, we were most concerned to hear about wastage on farms caused by overzealous specifications set by retailers, last-minute order cancellations and punitive clauses for undersupply. We look to the retail sector to address those issues with its suppliers. The role of the Groceries Code Adjudicator in setting fair terms of contract might well have a positive effect on food waste, but we wait to see.

Thirdly, our report considered the role of the EU. As many noble Lords will be aware, the European Commission published in July a wide-ranging series of proposed amendments to its waste legislation. These included an EU-wide aspirational food waste reduction target of 30% by 2025. The Commission says that it wants to use the baseline set in 2017, and we would be concerned about this because it would not recognise the very real progress that the UK has made before that date. Also included was a definition which excludes on-farm waste—another serious matter—and a requirement that member states develop national food waste prevention strategies. While this is welcome progress, it falls far short of the more holistic approach that we recommended in our report.

We had always understood that a communication on sustainable food had been drafted earlier in the year and was to be published at the same time as the waste review, but it has never seen the light of day. This debate takes place six days after the new Juncker Commission has taken office, under which responsibility for food waste has been transferred from the Directorate-General for the Environment to the Directorate-General for Health and Consumers. My fear is that this might signal a resistance in the Commission to the whole-supply-chain approach to food waste. So I would welcome the Minister’s observations on this change, and on whether he knows whether the communication on sustainable food is now likely to be published, with the new commission in place.

As I emphasised earlier, time is of the essence. One very practical area where it is possible to take action swiftly is food distribution. In that regard, I commend the work of charities such as FareShare, the Trussell Trust, Company Shop and FoodCycle. FareShare, for example, has reported a recent step change in the willingness of some supermarkets to donate food to them. FareShare is now providing enough food for more than 1 million meals per month in the areas where it works. This, it estimates, is with just 2% of the food out there. These meals are provided in outlets run by voluntary organisations such as daycare centres. These organisations are struggling with reduced budgets, so the provision of cheaper food through FareShare is a lifeline for them.

There appears to be growing momentum. Food banking is controversial, but given that it is increasing we were interested in how more fresh food could be included. We heard in our evidence from the Netherlands that food redistribution which includes fresh produce is entirely possible. However, whether it is FareShare or food banks, you need infrastructure for storage and delivery and that takes money. So, in this regard, I am really interested in bringing some of the supply chain participants together to thrash out some of these issues, to see whether the barriers are perceived or real, and to come up with some solutions. It would be very helpful if the Government committed to working with us on how redistribution of fresh produce can be boosted.

Looking to the slightly longer term and beyond UK shores, food waste prevention has to be made a reality across the EU. Last week, I had the opportunity to raise the issue with members of other EU national parliaments. Many of them went on to refer to my remarks, so I detected a willingness—although there are no concrete proposals—to do more. Can the Government tell us what they are doing, or plan to do, to boost the prominence of this issue among ministerial colleagues?

There are three specific areas where national Governments and the Commission could make a difference. One is to ensure that where food is not consumed by humans, it is, where safe, consumed by animals. The second area is to ensure that regulations aimed at making packaging more easily recyclable do not have the effect of reducing shelf life, so that packaging waste turns into food waste. The third is to ensure that the whole question of date labelling is kept under review, to ensure that it reflects genuine risk.

I thank the Government, notably the responsible Minister, Dan Rogerson, for very helpful evidence, the comprehensive response to our report and the subsequent correspondence between us.

This is a wide-ranging topic, and I am proud to say that our members worked meticulously over the nine months of the inquiry, with invaluable input from our then clerk Aaron Speer, our policy analyst Alistair Dillon and our specialist adviser Dr Julian Parfitt. I have covered only a few aspects of our work today. Noble Lords will no doubt pick up on others and I look forward to a stimulating debate.

For the rest of the debate, here's the link to Hansard...

Food waste: when you think about it...

I have, as you may have noticed, been thinking about food waste quite a lot lately. And one of the side effects of Ros's inquiry into the subject is that we have become rather more conscious of what we consume.

Now I'm not going to get carried away and suggest that we have reduced our food waste by some dramatic percentage, or that everyone could and should do more, but it is interesting to see how our thought processes have changed. Our fridge doesn't have as much stuff in it - during the week I can shop as I need to, fortunately - and I give a bit more thought to what's already in the fridge or freezer when planning my week. We measure pasta and rice, rather than just throw some into a pan to cook.

And there has been a benefit, in that our shopping bill feels smaller than it did, although, in truth, I haven't done a proper comparison yet.

But, whatever effect it has had on us, I'm loathe to see the Government legislate on the subject, rather that I'd like to see more education as to the potential benefits. Politicians and bureaucrats lecturing the public on the benefits of making soup out of surplus food, or whatever, will only alienate them. On the other hand, getting people to think about their shopping and eating habits might convince some that the benefits of a change of behaviour might be worth the effort.

If wastage levels are as high as have been suggested, there is scope for people to have a bit more money to spare for other things or, better still, to save. Many households have very little financial resilience due to the absence of savings, and if they can be helped by a little information and encouragement to reduce their food bills, it might then reduce their vulnerability to financial shocks.

But it isn't necessarily easy, as the report from Ros and her fellow committee members makes clear. Family life is more complex, many women work and therefore there isn't anyone in the house that has the time to cook and shop as their parents and grandparents did. Families don't eat together as they used to, so multiple different meals might be prepared at different times. The plethora of supermarket offers make decision making more difficult. In short, life is more complex, so the solutions aren't as simple.

BOGOFs have been the focal point of the debate this week, with some loudly protesting that they make it possible to eat, whilst others claim that they're a con. Ironically, the British Retail Consortium claim that supermarkets are moving away from such deals. The truth is hidden in the arithmetic, as it's only if you can calculate what such a deal really costs that you can judge whether it not it really is a good deal.

Hopefully, the coverage will offer an opportunity for some people to make changes that benefit them, whilst Government and everyone in the chain of food production and consumption works to reduce waste levels. With more and more pressure on resources as the global population increases, and as emerging middle classes in countries like India, China and Brazil demand more varied diets, anything we can do to make better use of the food that is produced can only help.

Food waste - another victim of misreporting

It is intriguing sometimes to see how the reporting of a story relates to the facts. Unfortunately, unless you are the subject of the story, or are part of it, you don't get to see how the facts and the reporting diverge. This week, however, I've had a ringside seat for a developing news story - the publication of a House of Lords report on food waste. It's been interesting, if not a little disheartening...

For example, much of the reporting, including Liberal Democrat Voice, claims that the report calls for BOGOFs to be banned, which is funny, because it doesn't. Instead, it calls for the supermarkets to rethink their strategy, as such offers on short life perishables are acknowledged, not least by the supermarkets themselves, to be the cause of significant wastage.

And it becomes clear that journalists and reporters don't really have, or make, time to do any real research other than a scan of a summary. Entertainingly, Iain Dale, interviewing Ros on LBC this morning, asked if this would impact on his use of Radox, in response to which Ros merely noted that Radox wasn't food. I'm not sure that I would have been quite so courteous...

It also demonstrates that, too often, the media feed off of each other, so a mistake made in an early report is simply transmitted on to more and more people, leading to misinformation and misunderstanding.

Reassuringly, those people who understand the real issues, from the National Farmers Union to FareShare UK, have broadly welcomed the report. Hopefully, this will lead to some concrete action to reduce wastage levels and provide a steer to the authorities in terms of what might be done.

@BaronessRos in the Lords: the scandal of food waste

Yesterday saw the publication of a House of Lords report on food waste, an event which might not usually be the cause of great excitement. However, this report was the result of six months of work by the Lords EU Sub-Committee D, chaired by Ros, and given the importance of the subject, there was some media interest.

So, late last week, Ros had done some pre-recorded interviews for the BBC and Sky News, and been interviewed for a lengthy piece in the Independent on Sunday - all good stuff.

And what are the findings?

• At least 90 million tonnes of food is wasted across the EU each year, representing a financial and environmental loss of resources. The 15 million tonnes of food wasted in the UK each year equates to a financial loss to business of at least £5 billion per year. Environmentally, the carbon footprint of worldwide food waste is equivalent to twice the global greenhouse gas emission of all road transportation in the United States.

• Efforts across the EU to reduce food waste are ‘fragmented and untargeted’ and the new European Commission, to be established in November, should publish a five-year strategy on food waste prevention within six months of taking office.

• Retailers, and in particular the big supermarkets who dominate food sales in the UK, should act more responsibly in limiting food waste by both farmers and consumers. In particular, supermarkets should move away from incentives such as ‘buy one get one free’ for certain types of produce, which may result in more food waste at home. They should also work harder to avoid cancelling orders of food that has already been grown by producers a practice which leads to unsold, but perfectly edible, food being ploughed back into the fields or left unharvested. It is estimated that millions of tonnes of food is wasted annually in this way.

• There should be Government action to encourage retailers to redistribute unsold food, where safe, for human and animal consumption rather than to be recycled via anaerobic digestion. VAT rates could be amended and tax breaks offered to encourage supermarkets to donate edible unsold food to food banks rather sending it to be composted. This would form part of a refocussing of EU policy in this area away from a ‘waste hierarchy’ toward a ‘food use hierarchy’ that stresses the use by humans of food initially intended for human consumption.

• The review on legislation regarding the feeding of food waste to animals is welcomed. The transfer of human food waste to animals should, however, only take place if scientific evidence establishes that it is safe to do so.

The full text of the report can be viewed here (PDF) or here (HTML).

Food that tells you when it's time to eat? Not as unlikely as you'd think...

In the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, there is reference made to the Ameglian Mega Cow, a ruminant specifically bred to not only have the desire to be eaten, but to be capable of saying so quite clearly and distinctly. This is, of course, very silly, and should not be taken seriously at all.

However, it seems that scientists are working on a computer chip that can be added to food to tell you when it is going past its prime. This was apparently news to the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for water, forestry, rural affairs and resource management, Dan Rogerson, who was heard to muse, "Chips for chips.", when this was put to him by the Chair of the House of Lords European Union Sub-Committee D, to whom he was giving evidence yesterday.

Naturally, Ros, for it was her, is very knowledgeable on such things, having led the Committee through their inquiry into food waste. Apparently, this development was vouchsafed to the committee during their recent visit to the Netherlands, and it isn't expected to be long before such a thing becomes financially viable.

I'm intrigued by the idea that your food might, say, send you a text to suggest that you pick up a few items on the way home so as to make best use of it. At the moment, I have Ros to do that, but for the evenings when she's in London and I'm here in Suffolk, it might be quite useful...