Food Waste and Food Distribution

Sharon Hodgson Excerpts

Tuesday 16th April 2024 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Vaz. I thank the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Jo Gideon) for securing this important debate.

Food redistribution services are fighting on the frontline of the food waste and climate crisis and must be supported. More than a third of all food in the UK is wasted, which is an absolutely shocking statistic. That waste contributes up to 10% of all greenhouse gas emissions and costs the UK economy over £20 billion a year, which is more than the entire aviation sector. There is always lots of public debate about the environmental impacts of aviation, but maybe it is time to shed more light on how we can support food redistribution schemes, which will be foundational if we are to have a more environmentally sustainable future.

In my constituency, I have a wonderful example of success in the redistribution sector called Company Shop, which we have heard about already. The Company Shop Group is a food redistribution service that has been able to transform unwanted products into usable, saleable goods for the benefit of my community and many others in various locations across the country. It understands that the UK throws away at least 10 million tonnes of food every year, but, incredibly, 6 million tonnes of that waste is avoidable and has a retail value of over £17 billion. That is where the Company Shop Group can prevent wasted food and salvage value that would otherwise have literally gone in the bin by reselling the surplus food at a discounted price to its members.

The store in my constituency has saved my constituents nearly £7.5 million on their shopping bills, while saving 2,649 tonnes of food from being binned. Those numbers are astonishing and represent 6.3 million meals that would otherwise have gone to landfill, where they would have fed no one and contributed to preventable environmental damage.

Benefits from food redistribution services such as this are felt by more than just our planet; they are felt in our constituents’ pockets too. As we have seen over the last few years, the cost of food can rise very quickly and fall very slowly, and contribute to growing levels of food insecurity and financial hardship for working people. Food redistribution schemes can be incredibly useful in preventing food waste and ensuring that our food system is more affordable and sustainable. Although the sector has seen incredible success from various charities, there is also vital work by social enterprises and commercial organisations such as the Company Shop Group that we can celebrate.

As the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on school food, I hear from food procurement specialists, school food providers, schools and families alike of the dire consequences of food insecurity. It is one of the major challenges policymakers currently face, and the most vulnerable in our society are those who suffer the most. We need to support charities, businesses and organisations to put food redistribution at the centre of their operations, so that we can save our constituents money and preserve the planet for future generations.

That is why many of us cautiously welcome DEFRA’s recent announcement that it will reconsider its earlier decision to delay mandatory food waste reporting for large food businesses until 2026. Due to overwhelming support for the policy from environmentalists, food and nutrition campaigners, food redistribution specialists, the public and businesses alike, the appetite for mandatory food waste reporting is at an all-time high. It is a relatively light-touch and simple intervention, which could be hugely cost-effective, incentivising large food businesses to cut down on their waste, and incentivising redistribution by organisations such as the Company Shop Group.

The food redistribution system has the potential to be incredibly efficient, as long as we achieve the joined-up policymaking that stakeholders across the sector are calling for. Last month, over 30 companies within the food, retail and manufacturing sectors signed an open letter organised by the food redistribution app Too Good to Go. If anybody has not used that app yet, I can highly recommend it, especially in London, where you can access anything within a few metres of where you are; that is not so much the case in the north-east, although I do still manage to use it there.

The letter called on the Government to introduce mandatory food waste reporting as soon as possible. By reporting on food wastage, we support redistribution schemes and tackle the crisis of food waste that was, for too long, a hidden evil in our food system. We need to put food redistribution at the centre of how we think about our food system, and we need the policies to make this happen. Repealing DEFRA’s 2026 timeline and introducing mandatory food waste reporting as soon as possible should be a good place to start. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Jo Gideon) for leading today’s debate. It is estimated that total food waste in the UK amounted to 10.7 million tonnes in 2021. Most food waste comes from households, equating to some 60%, followed by farms, at 15%, manufacturing, at 13%, and retail, at 2%. It is clear that we need to do more as a collective to tackle our food waste statistics, so it is good to be here to discuss the issue. It is not just something that the Minister gives us the solutions for; it is something that we, as elected representatives, and communities must work together on.

I was shocked to read that the edible parts of household waste amounted to £17 billion. That is the equivalent of £250 per person per year, or £1,000 for a family of four. In Northern Ireland in 2021, Minister Lyons called for a crackdown on food waste. It was estimated that Northern Ireland accounted for 25% of the content of our non-recycling bins.

I want to give a couple of examples to illustrate what has been done in my community. At the end of the day, major shopkeepers, including Asda and Tesco, give perishable goods to community groups, which in turn give them to needy families and elderly people. What they do is incredible. I never knew this until I went to see the local warehouse just before Christmas, but Jude Bailey, the lady in charge of it, also does great work by collecting chicken and ready-made meals. The companies keep that food for 24 hours, but after that time they give it to the warehouse group, which freezes it and in turn makes meals. I was really impressed by what it does. Its volunteers make a free meal for the community every day so that the food is not wasted. That is similar to what the hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Anne McLaughlin) described. People are incredibly kind. Jude and her team of committed Christians show their faith through helping others.

We waste not only food but a large amount energy, and there are carbon emissions associated with growing and transporting food. In Northern Ireland, we have successfully diverted 1 million tonnes of biodegradable waste from landfill since 2015, but there is still an excessive amount of waste to be addressed. We are all guilty of throwing out too much food and not making use of what we have in our kitchens, but we do not realise the full extent of the environmental damage that that can cause.

This will be a trip down memory lane for you, Ms Vaz. In the ’60s, when I was a child, nothing was lost in our house—and I mean nothing. We owned a shop, and the family home got what we did not sell. That was not because the food was bad—I am a pensioner now, so it did not affect me in any way. I have held on to my health for many years, so that indicates that the food was okay. When the cheese went a bit blue, we cut off the blue bit and ate the rest, and it did not do us any harm. In this day and age, that probably would not happen, but we did it. Everything was used, and the collie dog got whatever we did not eat. My goodness me: as children in the ’60s with a very capable family, we were examples of using everything in the house.

[Mrs Hodgson]

The hon. Gentleman is making a very good point that I did not make in my speech. He brought this figure to my mind: although we all think that waste in this country comes from supermarkets and restaurants, 70% is from households. Does he agree that we need to start in our own households, exactly as he is describing, if we want to solve the problem of food waste?

[Jim Shannon]

Absolutely, and that is the point that I am trying to make. I said to the Minister before the sitting that I do not expect him to give us all the answers. We have the answers individually and in our communities.

I am thankful that I have a very frugal wife who is careful with our grocery and shopping lists, but I understand the pressure on young families, who are busier now than I could ever imagine. Both parents work, and when they come home they carry out homework and take the kids to football or to Boys’ Brigade or Girls’ Brigade. When do they make meals? They have to rinse out containers for the recycling bin. They may envisage making dinner six times that week and buying groceries, but when the timings are changed for football or the school choir, or the kids need to be dropped off, it is hard for them to do that.

We have rightly moved away from girls-only home economics classes. I am impressed when I go to schools and see equal numbers of young boys in the same class, doing the same work and learning how to cook. Before I was married, it was bacon butties—toast and bacon under the grill. I will not say how often I used the grill and how often it was cleaned. I think I survived well as a single man, but when I got married, life changed. I thank the Lord it did.

It is clear from the figures that have been cited today that we need to take action. I am a great believer in education not simply changing our generation but equipping future generations with the tools to do better than we are currently doing, and I will finish with this comment. Households on low budgets need help to know how best to use their food, but households with higher budgets need the same lessons, because this is not a tale of income; it is a tale of mindset, as the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) said. We all must change our mindsets to be better stewards of our resources, food, money and, of course, time.