Written evidence submitted by Doctor Christian Reynolds, Geography and Sustainable Food Futures, University of Sheffield (FOW0065)

1.1  I am an economic modeller at the University of Sheffield (previously based at the University of Aberdeen, the Rowett Institute of Nutrition and Health; the University of South Australia, the Barbara Hardy Institute; and the University of Sydney, Integrated Sustainability Analysis) who has published 15 scientific papers and book chapters upon the social, economic and environmental impacts of food waste in Australia, New Zealand and the UK. My PhD research was part of an Australian Research Council Project “Zeroing in on Food waste: Measuring, understanding and reducing Food waste”. In 2014-15 was part of the expert advisory panel in developing the Food Waste and Loss measurement protocol (http://flwprotocol.org/).

1.2  Over the last two years I have been examining food waste in UK as part of my research upon healthy, affordable, sustainable diets in the UK. The evidence I offer will be

1)      To provide comparison and context with Australia and New Zealand.

2)      To highlight some of the economic, environmental and social impacts of food rescue operations.

3)      To discuss the role of the hospitality and retail sector in reducing food waste

1.3  I would like to stress the crucial role the Waste Resource Action Programme (WRAP) has played in, highlighting the issues of food waste to a diverse set of stakeholders, and mobilising these stakeholders to action. The UK has been the world leader in food waste data collection, and food waste reduction and diversion strategy. I doubt we would be having this discussion now without WRAP’s efforts over the last decade. Many parts of the Love Food Hate Waste programme have been adopted as best practice by the international community (including councils). Continued support and funding for this organisation is essential.

2        Comparison and context with Australia and New Zealand.

2.1  Australia and New Zealand have both been slower to respond to the problems of modern food consumption practices (Reynolds et al. 2011; Reynolds et al. 2016). Due to differences in diet and food consumption practice (i.e. higher at home consumption of fruits, vegetables and meat) the per person volumes of food waste generated in Australia are higher than those in the UK (Reynolds 2016), while the per person food waste generation in New Zealand is comparable to the UK (Reynolds et al. 2016). In Australia and New Zealand, state governments and local councils have deployed versions of the Love Food Hate Waste programme to positive effects (Zero Waste SA 2010; Høj 2012).

2.2  South Australia and New Zealand have both employed the use of high landfill levies for waste disposal (Collins 2009; Ministry for the Environment 2014). The funds raised from these levies has been channelled into waste minimisation (and renewable energy) infrastructure, research, and intervention programmes.

2.3  These levies are increasing yearly and are a clear financial signal to local government and industry that waste reduction is necessary and financially worthwhile. The increasing price of these levies also makes food waste recycling diversion and recycling financially attractive options.

3        Food Rescue

3.1  Food Rescue is a topic that I would like to highlight as there is has been an increased discussion of its use in the UK since the recent French legislation (Feb 2016). Food rescue (also called food recovery) is the practice of safely diverting edible food that would otherwise go into waste disposal systems, and distributing it to those in need—the food insecure. Food rescue organisations have emerged alongside foodbanks in combatting food poverty throughout the developed world, and have become a popular method for businesses to dispose (donate) their uneaten food waste. We examined the economic, environmental and social impact of Australian food rescue operations (C. Reynolds et al. 2015).

3.2  In the 2015 paper we compared food rescue as a method of food waste disposal, and not as a solution to food insecurity.  We did not consider food rescue operations as an effective method of combatting food insecurity as 1) there is a large gap between the foodstuffs rescued and the demand for them, with the random nature of food donations (as well as the perishability of donated food) leading to potential over and under supply scenarios on a daily basis. 2) If consumed exclusively, the types of food rescued may not be consistent with an overall healthy diet. Due to this donated money —  rather than rescued food waste— is crucial in purchasing staple foodstuffs so that the organisations can provide a secure and nutritious food supply. 3) The food rescue industry can only re-distribute a certain quantity of food effectively and safely each day. The scale of food rescue limited by the size of the food rescue operations and the types of food donated. If greater quantities of food are to be rescued, from a greater number of retailers and producers, there must be greater co-ordination of operations, and larger amounts funding allocated to food rescue operations.

3.3  As a method of waste disposal, we calculated that every tonne of food rescued led to US$221.94 worth of economic activity (compared to US$2.53 (landfill) or US$47.37 (compost)). This higher economic activity of food rescue, could be interpreted as higher cost of disposal, or increased economic activity (greater amounts of jobs, and services required). In addition, it was calculated that is cheaper to rescue a tonne of food waste than it is to purchase a tonne of edible food at market value. Furthermore, we calculated that for every dollar spent on Australian food rescue, edible food to the value of US$5.71 was rescued. To put it another way, for every dollar spent on Australian food rescue, 1863 calories worth of food was rescued—i.e., over half a day’s calorific food supply per person, however the nutrient value (or healthiness) of the food rescued was not measured.

3.4  A further caveat of using food rescue operations for food waste disposal/reallocation is that the costs of disposing of food waste are shifted from the producer or retailer of the food to the food rescue operation.  This is dangerous as this can price out food rescue from being effective. If food rescue is to be effective as volumes of food waste diverted to it increase, food rescue operations will need to have subsidies for disposal of inedible food waste to resource recovery operations.
 

4        The role of the hospitality and retail sector to reduce food waste

4.1  As part of a co-ordinated approach to food waste reduction, I believe that the hospitality and retail sector can help reduce food waste further by increasing out of home food consumption. The UK hospitality and retail sector has the potential to be more efficient at feeding people than households as it has a greater efficiency of food preparation and supply chain management and is driven by cost factors (Parfitt et al. 2013). In Australian modelling we found that at the national level, the hospitality and retail sectors produced less food waste per dollar spent, and were better at recycling the waste produced than households (Reynolds et al. 2014; C. J. Reynolds et al. 2015). In addition, the hospitality and retail sector is better placed to safely redistribute edible food waste to food rescue organisations than individuals.

4.2  The amount of money spent on food consumed or prepared outside the home by the UK population is approximately 34% of weekly spending (DEFRA 2014). With the types and quantities of foods and drink consumed outside of the home different from those inside the home.

4.3  Encouraging cultural shifts to eat greater amounts of food out of the house may assist in reducing waste and providing greater economic stimulus for local UK business. However, this must be done with caution as some of the food eaten outside the home may be unhealthier than made at home equivalents (Sharpe 2010; Food Standards Agency 2011). We must not be trading a reduction in food waste for a rise in diet related disease. These cultural shifts toward greater eating out could be motivated by introducing longer lunch breaks and greater work-life balance, or financial subsidy of hospitality and retail businesses that dispose of food waste appropriately and serve healthy menus.

References

Collins, D., 2009. The full cost of landfill disposal in Australia, Canberra, ACT, Australia.

DEFRA, 2014. Family Food 2013, London, England.

Food Standards Agency, 2011. Regulatory Support Unit Survey of the composition of certain types of take away food Local Authorities Food Standards,

Høj, S.B., 2012. Metrics and measurement methods for the monitoring and evaluation of household food waste prevention interventions. Adelaide: University of South Australia.

Ministry for the Environment, 2014. Review of the effectiveness of the waste disposal levy, 2014, Wellington. Available at: www.mfe.govt.nz.

Parfitt, J. et al., 2013. Overview of Waste in the UK Hospitality and Food Service Sector An overview of waste in the UK hospitality and food service sector Overview of Waste in the UK Hospitality and Food Sector 2.

Reynolds, C., Mirosa, M. & Clothier, B., 2016. New Zealand’s Food Waste: Estimating the Tonnes, Value, Calories and Resources Wasted. Agriculture, 6(1), p.9. Available at: http://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/6/1/9

Reynolds, C., Piantadosi, J. & Boland, J., 2015. Rescuing Food from the Organics Waste Stream to Feed the Food Insecure: An Economic and Environmental Assessment of Australian Food Rescue Operations Using Environmentally Extended Waste Input-Output Analysis. Sustainability, 7(4), pp.4707–4726. Available at: http://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/7/4/4707/.

Reynolds, C.J., 2016. A comparison of the socio-economics of food waste in the United Kingdom and Australia. In “Scarborough Fare” 2016 Joint Annual Meeting of Association for the Study of Food and Society / The Agriculture; Food; and Human Values Society / Canadian Association for Food Studies. The University of Toronto Scarborough; Toronto.

Reynolds, C.J. et al., 2011. Climate Change on the Menu? A Retrospective Look at the Development of South Australian Municipal Food Waste Policy. The International Journal of Climate Change: Impacts and Responses, 3(3), pp.101–112.

Reynolds, C.J. et al., 2015. Evaluation of the environmental impact of weekly food consumption in different socio-economic households in Australia using environmentally extended input–output analysis. Ecological Economics, 111, pp.58–64. Available at: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800915000208

Reynolds, C.J., Piantadosi, J. & Boland, J., 2014. A Waste Supply-Use Analysis of Australian Waste Flows. Journal of Economic Structures, 3(5). Available at: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s40008-014-0005-0

Sharpe, R., 2010. An inconvenient sandwich: the throwaway economics of takeaway food, United Kingdom: The New Economics Foundation.

Zero Waste SA, 2010. Valuing our food waste South Australia’s Household Food Waste Recycling Pilot Summary Report - 2010, Adelaide. Available at: http://www.zerowaste.sa.gov.au/upload/resource-centre/publications/food-waste/VALUING OUR FOOD WASTE.pdf.

November 2016