The UK Parliament is considering legislation which would ban people from wasting food in Britain, reports the Independent. The Environment Food and Rural Affairs Committee has received submissions from industry players, including farmers and consumer groups, on whether laws should be introduced to stop a crisis of food waste in Britain that leaves the nation trailing behind its European neighbours.
The Committee launched the inquiry after figures showed eight million tonnes of food is wasted post-manufacture in the UK. Research showed 60 per cent of this waste could be avoided, equivalent to £16 billion in food a year.
Other countries have adopted legislation to reduce food waste. In France, where is it against the law for supermarkets to dump surplus food, retailers redistribute 100,000 tonnes to charity.
Italy donates 86,000 tonnes to charity following the introduction of new laws. In Denmark, the Government backed a food waste supermarket which has helped reduce food waste after other initiatives had already helped reduce food waste 25 per cent in five years.
But the UK Government has been reluctant to introduce laws.
Government subsidies currently make it cheaper for businesses to turn food into energy or fertiliser than to keep it in a state where it can be donated to the hungry.
Over £160 million of taxpayers' money was invested in plants that convert unwanted food into energy in the 18 months to March 2015 alone.
Food charities say no similar subsidies exist to make sure food waste gets to the needy at a time when more and more people are turning to food banks.
"By not supporting the redistribution of surplus food alongside anaerobic digestion, the Government has come up with the classic law of unintended consequence: we are sending food to be used as energy when people are going hungry, which is barking mad," Lindsay Boswell, CEO of Fareshare, told the Independent earlier this year.
