Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether his Department has a strategy to prevent large quantities of food waste; and if he will make a statement.

Preventing food waste is environmentally and financially beneficial for households and businesses.

The Government is taking a multi-pronged approach to prevent food waste involving householders and food businesses across the food chain. The Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP), supported by Defra, launched the Courtauld Commitment 2025 in March 2016. The Courtauld Commitment 2025 is an ambitious ten-year voluntary agreement that brings together organisations across the food system to identify priorities, develop solutions and implement changes at scale, both within signatory organisations and by spreading new best practice across the UK. The Commitment goes further than ever before with ambitious industry targets to be reached by 2025. One of these is a 20% per capita reduction in food and drink waste arising in the UK.

The new phase will focus on providing a more targeted approach, focused on the most wasted food products and the people who generate the most waste.

Government will continue to play a central role in food waste reduction and the Resources and Waste Strategy will set out further policies in this area later in the year.