The UK’s biggest food redistribution charity has slammed the government for missing an opportunity to tackle food waste and help soaring levels of food poverty.
FareShare said this week’s Farm to Fork Summit at Downing Street had been a chance to respond to the “staggering” amount of food wasted on farms, whilst charities are struggling to keep up with demands for food from food banks and other organisations tackling food poverty. This week FareShare released University of Hertfordshire research that found the government could save tens of millions by reducing food going to waste on farms and helping to distribute it to groups in need.
However, despite a long-running campaign, backed by The Grocer, and support from more than 100 MPs, ministers have so far turned down FareShare’s request for £25m a year in funding to help companies handle the logistics involved.
The research found the 50,000 tonnes of surplus food redistributed to more than a million people across the UK every year by the charity saved almost £118m. For every £1 spent on getting food to people, instead of waste, the state was saved £2.97, it concluded.
Researchers studied the savings attributed to the state as result of beneficiaries accessing more nutritional food, and access to services such as mental health support.
The bulk of the savings was derived from a reduction in their “food affordability burden”, which had a knock-on impact to further indirect savings to the state.
In 2018, then environment secretary Michael Gove announced a £15m pilot scheme to subsidise the redistribution of edible food surplus and put a stop to what he called the “environmental, economic and moral folly” of good food going to waste.
Redistribution
It followed The Grocer’s Waste Not Want Not campaign, which cited the cost of redistribution for companies in the supply chain as one of the main barriers to tackling waste and helping food poverty.
However, government funding was axed after the pilot scheme ended, and despite two recommendations from the Efra Committee it has yet to be reinstated.
FareShare claims £25m a year would make it “cost-neutral” for farmers and food businesses to redistribute their surplus food by paying for labour, packaging and transport. “We hoped the government would use the Food Summit to commit to reinstating funding for distributing food surplus and show its commitment to tackling the ongoing crisis affecting communities across the UK,” said FareShare CEO Lindsay Boswell.
“FareShare relies on farmers and small scale growers to provide some of the nutritious fresh produce that we deliver to over a million people across the UK, many of whom are suffering from the devastating impact of the cost of living crisis.
“But while millions of people are being forced into food insecurity, three million tonnes of edible food is wasted on UK farms every year.
“This new research has found that FareShare’s work in rescuing surplus food and giving it to charities creates a staggering £225m in social economic impact every year – including savings to the State through the NHS, childcare costs, and the cost of destroying food waste.
“We need the government to invest in food redistribution and get good food to people who need it, not let it go to waste.”
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