Addressing redistribution, diversion from disposal and whole supply chain thinking.

I was privileged to be asked to be a keynote speaker at the EU FUSIONS NW Europe Platform event in Paris this week, bringing together officials from the European Commission (EC), representatives of the EU food and drink sector, NGOs, food redistribution charities and delivery partners from the FUSIONS project.

FUSIONS is a pan-European project looking at the potential for social innovations to address food waste and involves the majority of the 28 EU member states. And as a member of the external expert advisory board, which includes representatives from the UNEP, OECD, the EC and WRAP, I’m keen to see the project develop further over the next year; we will soon start to look at a wider remit for food waste, particularly in relation to the European Circular Economy Package, which is currently being consulted on.

In my address, I discussed the evidence collected by the House of Lords Inquiry into European Union's Contribution to Food Waste Prevention, which I was an advisor for, and the complexities of food waste policy issues. This included the main policy areas identified as likely to have the biggest long-term impact on food waste reduction: redistribution, diversion of more material away from disposal and treatment and towards animal feed (where safe to do so), and improvements in whole supply chain thinking.

A big talking point at the event in Paris was the recent announcement that France has passed a new law that forces supermarkets to donate surplus food supplies to charity. Congratulations; it’s a progressive move that the new Conservative government needs to learn from.

And a year on from the publication of the House of Lords Inquiry, it’s now that we start to progress deeper into the issue and seek to address the waste within the whole supply chain network. This work is bound to reflect on the Grocery Supply Code of Practice (GSCOP) and look at overcoming some of the factors that may induce suppliers to overproduce: they are penalised with fines (per case / pallet) for not fulfilling orders or under producing, and retailers frequently making late changes to orders, which could be addressed with more accurate forecasting and better sharing of information.

Tackling these supply chain areas will be more successful than dealing with consumer food waste alone, as they deal with some of the systemic reasons for surpluses being generated and provide solutions that have both environmental and economic benefits.

Given the whole supply chain nature of the problem, it is clearly a misrepresentation to claim that if only 1.5% of the food waste occurs at the retailer stage, then the solution lies with others – as per my discussion in The Grocer last week about shifting the blame away from consumers.

So, how are we going to fix aspects of the European food supply chain? Making the supply chains more efficient would be a good next step. At Anthesis, we have been working closely with the World Resources Institute (WRI) and its Food Loss and Waste (FLW) protocol to standardise reporting for the likes of supermarkets and member states, to help develop a global standard that will enable better, more formal and consistent reporting. In the UK, Tesco is the only retailer that publicly discloses data about the food that gets wasted in its stores and at its distribution centres. There is more work here for the British Retail Consortium and its supermarket members to do in terms of transparency and encouraging best practice.

From the example of competition policy, regulations that are not specifically designed to tackle food waste may result in a profound cultural shift in supplier-retailer relations. Food waste reduction may be an unintended but very welcome consequence. In putting together a framework for evaluating policies towards food waste, it is necessary to take the sideways view at the policy measures to bring this about. One thing is for certain, very few of such measures will contain the words ‘food’ and ‘waste’ within their terms of reference.

To discuss food waste prevention, reporting or policy work, you can contact Julian Parfitt, Resource Policy Advisor & Practice Leader.