Food: Waste

Debate between Baroness Jenkin of Kennington and Lord Taylor of Holbeach

Monday 12th December 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jenkin of Kennington]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what progress they are making on reducing household food waste.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Taylor of Holbeach)]

My Lords, on 15 November the government-funded Waste and Resources Action Programme—if my noble friend Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville will forgive me, I shall call it WRAP—announced a 1.1 million tonne, or 13 per cent, reduction in annual UK household food waste since 2006. We recognise the efforts of householders and the actions taken by WRAP and the food industry to help achieve this reduction. We are continuing to work with the industry to help householders cut food waste through responsibility deals and consumer advice.

[Baroness Jenkin of Kennington]

While welcoming this significant improvement and accepting that there is much more to do, I would like to ask about the Courtauld commitment. Accepting that supermarkets have made reasonable progress towards their household food waste reduction objectives—3 per cent towards their rather unambitious 4 per cent target—would my noble friend agree that the slow progress on the grocery supply chain product and packaging waste reduction, with a marginal decrease to date of only 0.4 per cent against a 5 per cent 2012 reduction target, is disappointing? Bearing in mind the estimated £17 billion a year cost associated with food, drink and packaging waste generation, would he tell us what the Government are doing to encourage supermarkets to achieve this target by the timescale set in the Courtauld commitment?

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

We are working through a voluntary deal in the Courtauld agreement. It has had some success, as I have just revealed with the figures on the reduction of food waste. Much of that is down to the work that WRAP has done in co-operation with the grocery retail trade and food manufacturing sector. My noble friend is right that more needs to be done to meet our new target for reducing waste in the supply chain. We are developing Courtauld 2 to achieve that objective.