Government cost-cutting has been blamed for a massive slowdown in the rate at which households have been reducing food waste.
This week, Wrap revealed figures showing waste had fallen by 15% since a landmark report in 2007, which showed a “staggering” figure of 8.3 million tonnes of food being thrown away - 22% of all purchases.
However, despite 1.3 million tonnes a year less food being wasted as of the end of 2012, there are alarming signs of the subsequent reduction running out of steam.
From 2007 to 2010, figures from Wrap showed overall annual household waste had fallen by 1.1 million tonnes to 7.2 million but since that time the figure has fallen by only 200,000 tonnes. The fall in food waste classified as avoidable (excluding items such as inedible material and food that some eat but others don’t like crusts) had fallen from 5.3 million tonnes in 2007 to 4.4 million in 2010, only dropping to 4.2 million tonnes by the end of 2012.
“The situation has flat-lined and it coincides with government cuts in Wrap’s and local authority budgets and a lack of advertising campaigns,” said one industry source.
Andy Dawe, head of food and drink at Wrap, admitted that while the reductions had been significant, more progress could have been made and progress could be “further down the line”.
A six-month Love Food Hate Waste Campaign in West London earlier this year led to a 14% reduction in avoidable food waste, but Wrap has been forced to limit its activities after the Treasury announced in June its budget would be slashed from £25.7m to £18m next year and to £15.5m in 2015/16. “Clearly resource limitations apply whether it is to people on the ground or to the ability to carry out things like national TV campaigns,” said Dawe, who called on the government and partners including retailers to step up collaboration.
Wrap’s report shows that British families throw away the equivalent of six meals a week on average Last month Tesco announced a major crackdown on food waste, including measures to reduce pack sizes, and limit so-called bogof promotions, after admitting it had been responsible directly or indirectly for 30,000 tonnes of food waste in the first six months of 2013, including 68% of salad sold in bags. A third of all salad bags were thrown out by customers, it found.
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