Resources

In 2019 the work of the four year EU research project taking action against food waste, REFRESH, came to an end.

This initiative was led by Resource London - the partnership between WRAP and London Waste & Recycling Board - together with Groundwork London. The organisations won a bid to the LIFE programme of the European Commission to deliver the €3.2million initiative in London, which acted as a test bed for other European cities.

A look at the strategy and practices that enable Co-op to adopt the principles of the UK Food Waste Reduction Roadmap – 'Target, Measure, Act'.

The third in a series of reports detailing how UK citizens’ food habits, behaviours and attitudes have changed during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Key findings

• Almost four in five UK citizens (79%) undertook additional food management behaviours during lockdown, and these behaviours endured as lockdown eased.
• However, fewer than 30% of us see a link between wasting food and climate change.
• New 'Wasting Food: It's Out of Date' brand to bring to life the devastating environmental cost of wasting food.

Increasing the amount of food surplus that is redistributed from food businesses is a key strand of the strategy to reduce food waste, to deliver the Courtauld Commitment 2025 (Courtauld 2025) target and ultimately the Sustainable Development Goal 12.3. There has been a significant increase in activities aimed at achieving this, with good progress being made over recent years (Surplus Food Redistribution in the UK; 2015 to 2017).

Unsustainable production and consumption of food constitutes one of the biggest environmental threats to our planet. Eliminating food loss and waste to the largest extent possible – at all stages from producer to consumer – stands out as an urgent and indispensable step towards more sustainable food systems.

This document provides a summary of the methodology for the Household Simulation Model (HHSim).

Food waste is an end-to-end challenge that requires end-to-end solutions.

Outlining progress made in the second year of the Food Waste Reduction Roadmap.

• More than 70 new food organisations have joined the Roadmap in the last twelve months, committing to ‘Target, Measure, Act’ on food waste in their operations, supply chain and customer base.
• Businesses implementing 'Target, Measure, Act' have increased from 121 to 171.
• 180,000t of food (worth £300m) across 45 companies reporting comparable data has been saved from becoming waste by Roadmap members.
• New Whole Chain toolkit equips businesses to tackle supply chain food waste farm to fork.

WRAP and UK food businesses have agreed some common guidelines for measuring and reporting on food surplus and waste, consistent with the global Food Loss and Waste Accounting and Reporting Standard (FLW Standard)