Gove wants £1bn food waste to go to needy

MICHAEL Gove will today launch a pioneering initiative to end the scandal of supermarket food waste. The Environment Secretary will announce plans to use food destined to be dumped by major retailers to provide 250 million meals to those in need. The collaboration – involving the supermarkets, charities and the Government – will prevent food with a retail value of close to £1billion being thrown away. Mr Gove said: ‘Nobody wants to see good food go to waste. It harms our environment, it’s bad for business – and it’s morally indefensible. Every year, around 100,000 tons of readily available and perfectly edible food is never eaten. This has got to change.’ The £15million pilot project will help establish a national scheme to distribute food that is going out of date to local charities and voluntary groups who will send out meals. Recipients could include school breakfast clubs, old people’s homes, disabled groups and the homeless. The scheme will focus on fresh produce, rather than store cupboard staples. Last year, the group FareShare distributed 28.6 million meals using surplus food. Food waste campaigner Ben Elliot welcomed the move, saying the amount of food dumped by the major supermarkets was ‘a scandal’. Mr Elliot is a businessman who volunteers with a charity called the Felix Project, which distributes surplus food in London. He said: ‘We all know food is often perfectly good long after the best before date set by the supermarket. It is a scandal that so much is thrown away. It is indefensible that you can have a homeless person sat just a few yards away while sacks of food are taken away to be dumped.

‘This initiative can make a difference in setting up a proper infrastructure.’

Government-funded waste reduction group Wrap estimates the retail sector is responsible for about 260,000 tons of food waste every year, more than half of which could be used. Existing schemes distribute about 43,000 tons of surplus food a year.

But Wrap estimates that a further 100,000 tons of food is going to waste which could be salvaged.

Mr Gove has now secured £15million from the Treasury to fund a one-year scheme, with the hope it will be extended indefinitely.

A Whitehall source said: ‘Michael is horrified by the amount of food going to waste. There are lots of groups out there who want to help and many of the supermarkets are willing to cooperate. But there is a distribution problem of getting the food from where it is to the people who need it. That is where we believe there is a role for government.’

Ministers will consult on the exact design of the scheme later this year. But sources stressed none of the money will go to the supermarkets.

The scheme is part of a wider ‘Resources and Waste’ strategy to be published by the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural affairs this year.