EU: Counting the Cost of Food Waste (EUC Report)

Baroness Jenkin of Kennington Excerpts

Thursday 6th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jenkin of Kennington (Con)]

My Lords, a number of noble Lords speaking in this debate may remember a meeting with WRAP earlier this year, when those present were invited to make a pledge about what more they personally were prepared to do to reduce food waste in their own lives. I thought about that—I racked my brains—and I genuinely could not think of anything more I could do apart from banging on and on about it. So, despite the temptation to scratch today because I am expecting 22 people to supper tonight, I am here to bang on about it. I can only hope that the Member of Parliament for Harwich and North Essex has gone home to turn on the oven. In any case, with a hungry 23 year-old son living with us at home, I can assure noble Lords that there will be no food wasted from that meal.

While I was not a member of the committee, I have read much of the report, the evidence and the Government’s response, and I very much welcome the raising of the profile of this issue both in the UK and across the EU. I particularly welcome the fact that Defra’s research projects are looking at options for feeding catering waste to animals and that WRAP is developing guidance that will provide clarification on what foodstuffs can and cannot be used for animal feed. I very much hope that this will increase the food available for use as animal feed and urge my noble friend the Minister to keep a close eye on progress and his foot on the accelerator. It is surely utter madness that rainforests in far off lands are still being cut down to grow soy, not for their local population to eat, but for us to import to feed our pigs.

However, I want to focus my remarks today on the committee’s recommendation about distributing good-quality surplus food to charities, which ensures that it goes to people in need, as outlined in our recommendation 7.

I am a member of the APPG on food poverty and hunger, co-chaired by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Truro and Frank Field, which has for the past several months been taking extensive evidence from some amazing organisations, individuals and church groups involved with food banks, food redistribution and other community projects. We have heard from leaders of exceptional projects, and I encourage Ministers and other noble Lords to visit, for example, the Oxford food bank, where food redistribution is at the heart of its model, and the Matthew Tree Project in Bristol, to see best practice which could so easily be replicated elsewhere. The report is currently in draft, but we hope to publish it by the end of the year.

I have been to Birkenhead and South Shields and, with other members of the group, I have visited the FareShare headquarters. I am pleased that the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, has already mentioned FareShare. If your Lordships have not already been to visit FareShare in Southwark, a mere 15 minutes away, I urge you to do so. You would be extremely welcome. Like me, it believes that no good food should be wasted. If food is still fit for purpose, it should go to feed people first. There is still concern that the financial incentives in place may preference energy recovery over redistribution for human consumption.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, mentioned, a mere 2% of the food currently available supplies more than 1,700 charities across the United Kingdom, feeding more than 82,000 people every day. They could do so much more if steps were put in place to divert the hundreds of thousands of tonnes of food that is in-date and fit for human consumption.

I digress slightly, but when we were there and looking in the fridge at the food that was past-date, which they said that we could take at our own risk, there were bottles and bottles—crates of bottles—of water that was apparently past its use by date.

If the UK increased surplus food redistribution to a similar level to that of our European neighbours—only 25% of what is available—that would result in a £280 million saving to civil society, as well as 238 million meals provided and the equivalent CO₂ reduction of 200,000 cars removed from the roads. Despite all that, 75% of that in-date good food would still be going to waste.

Here, I pay tribute to several retailers which, as the noble Baroness said, since I first visited FareShare about three years ago, have massively stepped up to the plate and improved their practice. They include Asda, Sainsbury, Tesco, Kellogg, Nestlé and Planet Earth, as well as the fabulous Gleaning Network, which brings together volunteers, farmers and redistribution charities to save hundreds of tonnes of fresh fruit and vegetables that are wasted on UK farms every year due to retailers’ policies or gluts. They are used in FareShare but currently not in the Trussell Trust food banks. Some of them have worked with FareShare for many years and others are more recent converts. I urge the supermarkets to join up their dots. Many of the smaller projects from which we have taken evidence find it difficult to source surplus food from local supermarkets when, at least at the centre, there is real interest in engaging properly.

There is no time for me to do anything but to mention Tristram Stuart and his Feedback project, but it is easy to find if your Lordships want to know more.

I finish by telling you about a project which I visited over the summer based in one of the most deprived wards in the UK. The Clacton hub of FoodCycle serves about 60 people every week, including homeless people, low-income families and people affected by mental health issues and addiction. They get a three-course meal made from food surplus sourced from local supermarkets. That does not just help those benefiting financially and provide them with a nutritious meal; there is also a social site. The fabulous Diane, the hub leader, who has worked with vulnerable people for more than 20 years, introduced my husband and I to the team cooking the food, who themselves are volunteers suffering from depression. That is the strength of this project and so many others that do great work. It helps those who are doing the helping; it gets them out of bed in the morning. They enjoy working together as a team and working out how to use whatever ingredients they are given that day. In so many communities in the UK, we have a need and we have the resource. Please, let us use common sense to put these two together.