Cost of Living: Food Waste

Lord Watts Excerpts

Thursday 21st September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Harlech (Con)]

My Lords, I have to disagree with my noble friend and the leading question posed by the noble Baroness earlier. We believe that the best way for companies to reduce food waste is the voluntary method we have set out in the road map. The surplus food and drink waste hierarchy is a priority scale for the use, recovery and disposal of surplus food and drink waste. At the top of the hierarchy is prevention, followed by redistribution to people in need, then animal feed, recycling in aerobic digestion plant and composting, followed by recovery of energy from waste plants. The least preferred options are disposal—for example, incineration—without energy recovery, and landfill.

[Lord Watts (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister says that the Government decided not to ask for that data because of the cost. Can he tell the House what the cost would have been?

[Lord Harlech (Con)]

My Lords, I think I said in my opening Answer that it would cost an estimated £26,000 on average for a large company to start measuring food waste.