With the 2024 election looming on 4 July, I scoured the Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrat and Green manifestos to find out which party has the strongest commitments to tackling food waste.
Why should food waste be a key 2024 election commitment?
Food waste is an urgent issue for climate, land use and nature. It is responsible for 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions, meaning that if food waste were a country, it would be the third biggest emitter on earth after the USA and China. For the UK, the effects of climate change are already being felt. Warmer air holds more water, and as a result, flooding is threatening homes, livelihoods and food security, and will only get worse.
Moreover, huge amounts of land is used to grow food that is then wasted. Imagine what we could do with that land instead – affordable housing, carbon sequestration, habitat restoration, more wetlands for climate adaptation, renewable energy like solar farms, and more space for local food production. Tackling food waste has enormous, positive knock-on effects.
There is a strong precedence for food waste policy solutions
In December 2023, the Environment Audit Committee published a report on Environment Change and Food Security. Within it, the Committee recommendations included:
“Preventing and reducing waste at all stages in the food chain should be a central component of the Government’s food strategy, as this is a quick-win compared to other actions to maintain food security in the face of environmental change.”
There are a number of existing policy solutions that political parties can get behind that would help reduce food waste in the UK. For instance, The National Food Strategy was published in 2020 and food waste features as one of its chapters. It concludes that policy levers such as better food waste collection, improving food safety labels and adjusting portion sizes sold in retailers could help reduce food waste for consumers. Parties could take these recommendations on board when curating their manifestos.
For broader systemic changes, during the summer of 2022, Defra consulted on making it a legal requirement for large businesses to measure and report their food waste. Despite 99% of respondents in favour of the new policy, the government decided to scrap it, to much bewilderment. After threat of legal action, Environment Minister Steve Barclay hinted that the government would take another look at mandatory reporting. Reintroducing this policy would be an important first step to better tackling food waste in the UK.
In 2023, sustainable farm Riverford launched a campaign for fair business practices for farmers. The campaign focuses on five principles for supermarkets to commit to in order to treat farmers properly, one of which was to ‘Agree on fair specifications’. Imposing unrealistic aesthetic standards is a huge driver of food waste on farms. If all five commitments are adhered to, food waste will organically decrease in the UK food supply chain, and parties could embed these principles into their future food strategies.
Due to the Riverford campaign, the EFRA Select Committee was conducting an inquiry into “Fairness in the food supply chain” before the dissolution of Parliament. In the oral evidence session in May 2024 with Farming Minister Mark Spencer, many MPs (and mostly Conservative MPs) pressed for information about how farmers were being mistreated by big retailers. For instance, Conservative MP Sheryll Murray pointed out that farmers are sometimes forced to discard the food they’d grown due to unfair business practices. One solution would be to give the Groceries Code Adjudicator more resources and powers to properly penalise such practices.
What do the Parties say?
It is clear that food waste policy solutions are available and popular, and wrapped up in wider food and farming issues which could benefit many stakeholders in the sector. So what have the UK’s political parties promised to do about food waste in their manifestos?
Labour Party
Nothing explicit.
Labour pledges that it is “committed to reducing waste by moving to a circular economy” but gives no further details on what waste policy it will deliver in general.
It also “recognises that food security is national security. That is why we will champion British farming whilst protecting the environment.” Again, however, food waste is omitted from strategies for food security and the environment, as are policies that would support farmers against unsustainable businesses practices which incur more food waste.
Conservative Party
Nothing.
The manifesto commits to strengthening food security, but only points to the UK Food Security Index in delivering this, which does not include any indicators for food waste.
Liberal Democrats
Nothing explicit.
Like Labour, the Lib Dems pledge to “Cut resource use, waste and pollution by accelerating the transition to a more circular economy”, however do not provide any details on concrete policies.
More pledges can be found in relation to food. They declare they will “Introduce a holistic and comprehensive National Food Strategy to ensure food security, tackle rising food prices, end food poverty and improve health and nutrition.” There is no mention of food waste and they do not acknowledge whether they will bring back the National Food Strategy that was published in 2020 or if they will create a new one.
There is a brief line to “Strengthen the Groceries Code Adjudicator to protect consumers from unfair price rises and support producers” but there is no more information about what “support producers” means.
They also commit to “Introducing robust and clear-to-understand food labelling”. If this refers to clearer use-by dates this would help reduce waste, but it could also mean health and welfare standards, fair trade labelling etc.
Green Party
The Green Party was the only one out of the four to note that a third of food is wasted. Relevant commitments from the manifesto are:
- “Policies that ensure that good quality surplus food is not wasted.”
- “Tackling the unfairness in the system through revitalising the abandoned National Food Strategy.”
- “Strengthening the powers of the Grocery Standards Adjudicator and the Food Standards Agency.”
Although one of these commitments explicitly tackle food waste, and they promise to bring back the National Food Strategy, it is disappointing they do not also pledge to revisit the policy on mandatory reporting.
There is a lot of potential in food waste policy solutions. Reducing food waste means helping to tackle climate change, pivoting to an efficient use of land and resources, and has positive, symbiotic effects with other food and farming policy. Moreover, there is a strong precedent to introduce policies that have already been warmed up during the last government, which are popular across political divides and throughout the food sector. The next government has a duty to maximise this potential.
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Feature image by Couleur on pixaby
FOOD WASTE STORIES 