Food Waste

Margaret Ferrier Excerpts

Thursday 11th June 2015 Westminster Hall

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (SNP)]

I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak today and I thank the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) for tabling this important debate on what I consider to be a principal concern in relation to one of the most important global issues facing us. The amount of food wasted each year worldwide is staggering: about one third of all food—approximately 1.3 billion tonnes—is discarded each year. Last year, the House of Lords carried out an inquiry into the cost of food waste across the EU and found that an estimated 89 million tonnes of food are wasted every year. Furthermore, it reported that that figure is set to rise sharply if action is not taken.

In the UK alone, it is estimated that households throw away 6.7 million tonnes of food per annum. Worldwide, food wastage is a major problem, as the hon. Member for Bristol East has said, with significant costs for the environment, the economy and society. Something is hugely wrong with our food distribution system if a third of food is wasted globally, but nearly 1 billion people across the planet go hungry.

The UK is by far the worst food wastage offender in the EU, as the hon. Member for Bristol East has pointed out. We should be deeply ashamed of that, and we should seek to remedy it. With food poverty becoming a huge problem, the redistribution of waste food should be a priority. I was pleased to learn last week about Tesco’s trial partnership with FareShare, through which it could hand tens of thousands of tonnes of surplus food from its stores to local charities. The scheme has already proven to be quite successful for Tesco in the Republic of Ireland, and I hope that we can look forward eventually to a UK-wide roll-out across all Tesco stores.

Although such corporate responsibility is to be commended, we as legislators have an obligation to fix our broken supply chain. The French National Assembly voted last month in favour of a Bill that will start to redress the food distribution system using waste food from supermarkets. The rare cross-party consensus surrounding the legislation demonstrates the importance and urgency of tackling food waste. Hunger and climate change should not be partisan issues. As elected Members of this House we have a moral duty to work together to address them, and I hope that the Minister will take that on board.

Last week, the hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) tabled an early-day motion that called on the Government to introduce legislation to ban supermarkets from throwing away food that is approaching its best before date, and instead to make it available to charities and food banks. I was pleased not only to support the motion but to table an amendment, which called on the UK Government to engage with the Scottish Government on food waste.

Scotland produces enough food waste each year to fill 42,000 double-decker buses, and each household wastes, on average, £470 per annum on food that they throw away. The Scottish Government have set ambitious environmental targets for reducing CO₂ emissions and reducing the amount of general waste that goes to landfill. The 2010 zero-waste plan is designed to promote sustainability, and the aim is for a maximum of 5% of waste to go to landfill by 2025. The strategy is implemented by Zero Waste Scotland, which is funded by the Government. One of its six key aims is to transform attitudes to food waste.

In my constituency, the local authority trialled a domestic food waste collection in the Drumsagard area in 2011. Such was the success of the trial that the programme was widened to incorporate many more homes in the wider Rutherglen and Cambuslang area, which, in common with every local authority, has a statutory obligation to provide a separate food waste collection service. Starting this month, some 133,000 households will be issued with a free small food waste caddy for use in their kitchens. That is an important measure, because the high cost to consumers of food recycling is widely seen to be prohibitive. The Scottish Government support the changes, and our climate change Minister last week announced that an additional £5 million will be made available over the next two years to help councils to roll out food waste collection schemes to homes across Scotland. Perhaps the Minister could take that on board for the whole UK.

Just across the boundary of my constituency, in Blantyre, a local company is helping to divert food from landfill back into the ecosystem. GP Plantscape now processes some 50,000 tonnes of food and garden waste at its in-vessel composting facility every year. That results in a nutritious compost, cuts down on landfill waste and helps to save the peatlands by offering a viable alternative product.

Hon. Members have not yet mentioned restaurants. The Scottish Government realise that small changes made by individuals can have a huge impact. Not only is Zero Waste Scotland keen to educate people about shopping smarter, making meal plans and using leftovers efficiently, but it has trialled innovative programmes such as the “good to go” scheme, in which restaurant customers took home their uneaten food.

The so-called doggy bag pilot last year was so successful that it is now being extended. The restaurants involved saw dramatic reductions in food waste, and it has been estimated that if restaurants across Scotland routinely offered customers doggy bags, the equivalent of 800,000 full meals could be saved from the bin every year. A lot more can still be done to divert food from landfill, and encouraging better consumption habits and widening access to food waste recycling are only part of a wider strategy. We have a responsibility, as legislators and as human beings, to do more.

We have to dare to be bold and innovative about how we approach food growing, harvesting, storage, distribution and disposal. As the world population continues to grow and demand for resources increases, food security will pose an ever greater problem. The hon. Member for Bristol East spoke about how we can deal with that. Changing deeply ingrained public attitudes is not an easy or quick process, but the action we take now will determine the legacy that we leave to the next generation.

These islands are wealthy, and the widespread explosion in food bank use should shame us all. In the last year alone, the Trussell Trust supplied more than 1 million people with emergency food support. In contrast, it supplied only 40,000 people over the same period five years ago. Food banks address a symptom of the problem, but it is incumbent on us all to address the causes. Much remains to be done to tackle the challenges that we face.

Food redistribution has traditionally faced a number of barriers. If we are really serious about tackling the problem that we face, we must work proactively with all the relevant outside organisations to effect change. As has been mentioned, one factor that has deterred businesses from donating food is the risk that they will be held legally liable in case of illness. We must find ways to protect and support those who donate food in good faith. In particular, we must support small businesses, which might otherwise find the implementation of a food waste strategy to be prohibitive. I would like us to legislate to divert food waste from landfill to those who are in need, and to ensure that sending waste to landfill is neither easier nor more economical for retailers.

We must look at how food loss and waste can be reduced at every stage of the food chain, and we must work together to address the food poverty crisis on these islands. There is much on which we can co-operate, and no doubt there is much that we can learn from one another. I enjoyed hearing from the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) about the initiatives in that city—especially the story about the chocolate, which sounded really good. The shipping container café is also a great idea. In addition, we have not spoken a great deal about how food waste could help elderly people. No doubt, there is much we can learn from one another to help us tackle the problem at a household, local and UK level. I support calls for legislation on food redistribution, and I implore other Members of the House to do likewise.