Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent assessment he has made of the potential merits of (a) making food available to those in food poverty and (b) other options as an alternative to landfill and incineration for the disposal of food waste.

All waste operators are required to follow the waste hierarchy in managing waste (including food waste). This means that they should take all such measures as are reasonable in the circumstances to prevent, reuse or recycle food waste before considering recovery through incineration or sending to landfill. Where food waste cannot be prevented it should be recycled first through anaerobic digestion, or second, composting where reasonable before incineration. Sending food waste to landfill can lead to significant greenhouse gas emissions and is therefore a last resort. Many local authorities have introduced separate collection of food waste, and we will work to support an increase in numbers so that the amount of food waste sent to landfill continues to decline. The Government has announced an ambition to work towards sending zero food waste to landfill by 2030.

The Government is taking action to support the redistribution of unsold edible and nutritious surplus stock food from businesses to individuals in need. The Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP), supported by Defra, launched the Courtauld Commitment 2025 in March 2016 and business signatories including leading retailers, manufacturers and food redistribution organisations have agreed an ambition to work collaboratively with WRAP to double the amount of surplus food they redistribute by 2020 against a 2015 baseline of 15,000 tonnes. At the end of last year, the Government and WRAP announced a new £500,000 fund for charities who redistribute surplus food from food businesses to those in need.