A £15m fund to help tackle the scandal of food wasted on UK farms has been salvaged after months of campaigning by redistribution charities.
Over Christmas Defra confirmed the funding, previously announced in February last year under Rishi Sunak’s government, would go ahead, to help fund a series of minimum £20,000 grants to help get food to homeless shelters, food banks and charities.
The Grocer reported in September that the promised fund had been “left in limbo” amid negotiations with the Treasury as it attempted to tackle the black hole in its finances left by the previous government.
However, circular economy minister Mary Creagh said ministers were determined to allow the charitable sector to work more closely with farmers to prevent edible food going to waste.
An estimated 330,000 tonnes of edible food is either wasted or repurposed as animal feed before leaving farms every year. While farmers would prefer for this to be destined for people’s plates, charities that redistribute food often lack the means to collect food from farms and get it to those who need it.
The announcement of the fund at the NFU Conference last February followed years of campaigning led by The Grocer and charities including FareShare, with more than 1,000 charities across the UK signing an open letter to Sunak to back the campaign.
The previous government failed to renew a £15m pilot scheme, first set up by former environment secretary Michael Gove in 2018, which provided redistribution charities with funds to transport waste in the supply chain to prevent it being buried back into field, sent to landfill or sent to anaerobic digestion.
“Nobody wants to see good food go to waste – especially farmers who work hard to put food on family tables across the country,” said Creagh.
“Our new fund will help the charitable sector to work more closely with farmers, helping to find new opportunities to get their world-leading produce to those most in need within our communities.”
In a joint statement, Charlotte Hill, CEO of The Felix Project, and Kris Gibbon-Walsh, CEO of FareShare, said: “Following years of campaigning by FareShare and The Felix Project, we are delighted that this fund will become a reality.
“We are pleased that the government has recognised that too much food goes to waste on our farms and that it should be redistributed to feed people who need it.
“It is vital that the scheme is delivered in a manner that maximises the redistribution of surplus food to those who need it, while addressing the systemic challenges that create waste.
“Collaboration across the food industry, charitable redistribution sector, government, and farmers will be key to achieving this.”
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