"With the average household throwing away food worth hundreds of pounds each year, there is a clear opportunity both to save money and to cut back on waste," argues UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, commenting on the results of a government study reviewing the main trends in the country's food production and consumption and their effects to the economy, society and environment.
The report, entitled 'Food Matters - Towards a Strategy for the 21st Century', was published on 7 July as the G8 heads of state gathered in Hokkaido, Japan, to discuss the global food crisis. The report, commissioned by the prime minister last autumn, also assesses the UK's current food policy framework and recommends changes.
According to the report, UK consumers throw away the equivalent of £10 billion (€12.5 billion) worth of food every year. That adds up to some £420 (€527) per family and £610 (€766) per family with children. According to the report, some seven million slices of bread, one million slices of ham, 4.4 million whole apples, 1.3m yoghurts and 440,000 home-made and ready-made meals every day.
Speaking in Brussels at the Commission's Green Week event early June, a representative of the UK Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), described throwing away meat and dairy products as "the ultimate sin" as their production is very resource intensive and causes a lot of greenhouse gas emissions.
Furthermore, according to the report, wasted food causes greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to 18 million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year. Eliminating the unnecessary waste would deliver greenhouse gas savings "equivalent to taking one in five cars off UK roads," the study concludes.
Future government challenges identified by the report are namely to ensure an economically, socially and environmentally more sustainable food system, with "fair prices, choice, access to food and food security through open and competitive markets, continuous improvement in the safety of food, a further transition to healthier diets and a more environmentally sustainable food chain," lists the report.
Defra is currently preparing another paper on the key factors affecting food supply and pricing.
