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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to reduce the amount of food wasted by (a) consumers, (b) supermarkets and (c) restaurants.

In December 2018, the Government launched its Resources and Waste Strategy which sets out our approach to address food waste from farm to fork.

Through Government grant funding of over £3 million this year, the Waste Resources Action Programme (WRAP) aims to reduce food waste across the supply chain and in the home.

We are also fully committed to meeting the UN Sustainable Development Goal 12.3 target, which seeks to halve global food waste at consumer and retail levels by 2030.

Consumer campaign initiatives including the lovefoodhatewaste programme and campaign moments such as Crushing it aim to help consumers tackle waste in the home. This is supported by the Courtauld 2025 Commitment, a collaboration across the supply chain which aims to reduce UK food waste by 20% per capita by 2025 through for example supply chain efficiency initiatives and consumer behaviour change prompts such as storage advice. We also work closely with WRAP on its work with the hospitality industry and the provision of resources such as ‘Guardians of Grub: Becoming a Champion’ (http://www.guardiansofgrub.com/becoming-a-champion) and ‘Target Measure Act’ (https://www.wrap.org.uk/content/target-measure-act-case-studies-hospitality-and-food-service), embedding food waste management at the center of business operations.

Through the £15 million Food Waste Fund we are also making grants available to prevent food waste, including helping food surplus redistributors to get more surplus from the supply chain to those who have a need.