Gove pledges £15m to support redistribution of food surplus

Feedback responded to reports in the Daily Mail that Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Michael Gove has pledged a £15m fund to support the redistribution of up to £1 billion-worth of supermarket food surplus. Feedback’s supermarket food waste scorecard pointed out that Tesco alone last year sent 20,000 tonnes of edible food surplus to be broken down into bio-gas.

Carina Millstone, Executive Director, said:

“It’s heartening to see the Government heeding calls to fix incentives that make it cheaper to break good food down for bio-gas rather than to ensure it feeds people. However, the challenge remains for supermarkets to find ways to reduce how much waste they generate in the first place, with disastrous consequences for our soil fertility. Using public money to clean up the supermarkets’ addiction to waste isn’t progressive, it could even turn out to be a get out of jail free card for a broken supermarket model that puts the retailers’ bottom lines above our long-term food future.”