Supply Chain Food Waste
In total food waste in the UK is around 18 - 20* million tonnes, with household food and drink waste making the single largest contribution (8.3* million tonnes).
Retailers are believed to generate about 1.6* million tonnes of food waste, food manufacturers about 4.1* million tonnes, with food service and restaurants producing about another 3* million tonnes. The remainder comes from the agricultural and horticultural sector, and commercial food waste (e.g. from hospitals, schools, etc).
Food and Drink Federation (FDF)
In October 2007 members of FDF set out where they felt they could make a real difference to the environment with the launch of the FDF Five-fold Environmental Ambition. The report details the food and drink manufacturing industry's ambitious environmental goals to reduce the industry's CO2 emissions; water use; packaging and food wastes; and food transport miles.
This includes working with WRAP, under the Courtauld Commitment, to achieve FDF's 20% reduction in food and packaging wastes arising at food and drink manufacturing sites by 2010. WRAP is also supporting FDF to achieve their ambition of zero food and packaging waste to landfill from 2015.
One Year On
In November 2008 FDF members met in London to hear how they had progressed. Some highlights include:
- Prevented more than half a million tonnes of food waste being created in 2006 by, for example, ensuring that the by-products from production were used in animal feed;
- Recycled or recovered 82% of the food and packaging waste that arose at their sites in 2006;
- Established the Checklist and Clause for Greener Food Transport to achieve fewer and friendlier food transport miles and collaborated with the IGD to save 8.7 million road miles during 2007 and 2008.
Find out more about FDF's achievements - read their 2008 Progress report and news release.
Biowaste - garden, kitchen and food waste
Recent research reports from Eunomia show that there can be real cost and environmental gains from collecting garden and food waste separately from each other. This enables processing costs to be minimised and can increase the amount of food collected. Further information can be found on the Biowaste webpages.
