Institution responds to European food waste report

The Institution's Dr Jenifer Baxter says it is very disappointing that the UK continues to generate so much food waste and that supermarkets need to join forces to abandon price discounting methods that encourage overbuying.

Dr Jenifer Baxter, Head of Energy and Environment at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, said in response to research by the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission which found the UK to be at the bottom of the European avoidable food waste league:

“It is very disappointing that the UK continues to generate such huge levels of avoidable food waste. In 2013, the Institution’s report Global Food: Waste Not, Want Not found that about 50% of all food produced in the world ends up as waste.

“In the UK, much of this waste is due to food being thrown away by the consumer and as much as 30% of UK vegetable crops are not harvested due to them failing to meet exacting standards based on their physical appearance.

“While it would be wrong to lay all of the blame for waste with supermarkets, deals like Buy-One-Get-One-Free, ‘half price’ offers and other price discounting methods exacerbate the problem. Supermarkets need to join forces to abandon these price discounting methods that encourage overbuying. This food could be used to help feed those in hunger today, where in the UK there is increased use of food banks and globally where food shortages exist in many regions.  It is also an unnecessary waste of the considerable land, water and energy resources that were used in the production, processing and distribution of this food – wasted resources that could be used to meet other human needs.

“In a demand-led society, it is vital that we understand the cost of this waste to the producers and the environment.  If we are to have a sustainable future with an increasing population, the Government, retailers and consumers must reduce in real terms the amount of food that is wasted.”