Last week WRAP and IGD released their annual progress report for the UK’s Food Waste Reduction Roadmap. The report identified in the last 12 months, more than 70 new organisations have committed to the Roadmap, bringing the total to more than 210 businesses.

The Food Waste Reduction Roadmap is aiming to halve food waste throughout the supply chain by 2030 in line with the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG 12.3) . The UK’s Food Waste Reduction Roadmap and its strategy of Target-Measure-Act is one of the initiatives that prompted the Champions 12.3 coalition to name the UK an “exemplar” country in its global progress report on SDG 12.3, published in New York.

Retailers:

Tesco was the first retailer to invite its suppliers to adopt the Target-Measure-Act approach to food waste in 2017 and now they have 54 UK suppliers sharing their food waste data publicly. Sainsburys and Waitrose have since become the first retailers to initiate new Whole Chain Projects under the Roadmap guidance. This programme involves businesses across the supply chain working together to identify ways to reduce food waste at each stage of the process. WRAP have set the target for 50 projects by the end of 2022, and alongside the report, they also unveiled a new Whole Chain Project Toolkit to enable others to begin at speed.

Within the report, it’s mentioned that five retailers have published comparable data, revealing that between them they have prevented 20,000 tonnes of food waste a year compared to their baselines, representing an average 15% reduction, the equivalent of £60million of food saved.

Production and Manufacture:

Within the production and manufacture sector, WRAP saw around 80% of businesses committed to the Roadmap show evidence of implementing the Target-Measure-Act approach. Those businesses with comparable data have shown a reduction in food waste  This year the food industry has seen a wide range of innovations being employed, including developing new products from materials with no previous end market as well as improving processes and staff training.

Hospitality and Foodservice:

Covid-19 caused the hospitality and foodservice sector to have to urgently redistribute surplus food and come up with alternative ways of operating whilst restaurants, pubs and cafes were forced to close their doors during lockdown. However, despite the disruption and challenges this industry has had to face, the number of companies committing to the Roadmap has increased to 36, with some new businesses making the commitment, including big names such as Burger King UK, McDonalds UK and Pret A Manger joining the Roadmap.

Building on the Guardians of Grub campaign, WRAP is piloting a new online learning course to help businesses minimise food waste. Guardians of Grub: Becoming a Champion is a practical online course designed to help the sector use tools and techniques to build competence and confidence to reduce food waste. It is being developed with the assistance of UK hospitality and food service businesses and trade bodies operating as part of an Advisor Group.

Government Food Waste Champion Ben Elliot said: “It is an environmental imperative that we reduce food waste to stop the needless waste of resources, energy and water used to make our food, as well as the time, skill and dedication that goes into growing, making and serving it.

“As a nation we’ve made excellent progress in tackling food waste, but there’s more we need to do, both in the food sector and as individuals in our daily lives.

“I urge all businesses to commit to the Food Waste Reduction Roadmap and the principles of Targeting, Measuring and Acting so that we can go even further to tackle food waste.”

To read the full press release, click here: https://wrap.org.uk/content/uk-named-%E2%80%98exemplar%E2%80%99-food-waste-reduction-roadmap-membership-passes-210

To read the full report, click here: https://wrap.org.uk/sites/files/wrap/Food-Waste-Reduction-Roadmap-Progress-Report-2020_0.pdf