The Live Wire



Press Release

Retailers and customers achieve massive food waste reduction

15 November 2011

A sharp fall in food waste from homes demonstrates the success of retailers' work to change customers' behaviour.

Figures published today, (Tuesday) by the Government's waste reduction body WRAP quantify the scale of the reduction. Total UK domestic food waste fell by 13 per cent (1.1 million tonnes) between 2006/07 and 2010.

All the major food retailers are delivering WRAP's Love Food, Hate Waste campaign by providing advice on food storage and use of leftovers, offering a wider range of portion sizes (such as half loaves of bread) and making the best use of packaging.

British Retail Consortium Head of Environment Bob Gordon said: “This reduction is all the more important because food waste has such a large environmental impact and costs people hard-earned money. The scale of the reduction shows retailers are right to support customers in tackling the biggest source of food waste – the home. Previous WRAP figures showed eight times more food waste coming from homes than from stores.

“Not all food waste is avoidable - bones and peelings for example - but the scale of the waste reduction achieved shows retailers successfully educating and encouraging customers to change the way they buy and manage food. It's also good to see local authorities taking more responsibility. Rising numbers of separate collections are making more households aware of their food waste and the need to tackle it.

“Retailers are working to take these gains further but also to make progress in areas such as the assessment and reduction of the whole-life environmental impact of products.”

The full results are available at www.WRAP.org.uk



Press releases, papers and documents published on this page are the intellectual property of an organisation unrelated to Central Lobby. We promote their parliamentary and political campaigning activities as they are subscribers to the Central Lobby service.

As such, Central Lobby does not edit, endorse, or attempt to balance the opinions expressed on this page. The content of press releases and other such types of content are the responsibility of the originating organisation.

British Retail Consortium

More from Dods

© Dods Parliamentary Communications Ltd