Baroness Jones of Whitchurch – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Jones of Whitchurch on 2016-09-12.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Gardiner of Kimble on 3 April (HL7210), how much surplus food is now being redistributed from supermarkets; and what action they are taking to increase the proportion of food redistributed to charities.

Lord Gardiner of Kimble

The Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) published its Food Surplus and Waste Quantification report in May this year. This estimates that 5,000 tonnes of surplus food was redistributed by the UK retail sector last year.

WRAP has established a Redistribution Working Group under Courtauld 2025 to share best practice and help identify and overcome barriers to redistributing food. This Working Group met for the first time in July this year. All of the major retailers are carrying out initiatives aimed at increasing store-level redistribution, or looking at how to maximise distribution from distribution centres or make it easier for their suppliers to redistribute surplus food.