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

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to promote the adoption of cold chain methods globally to reduce food loss and waste in supply chains.

Defra is supporting action to reduce food loss internationally through the Official Development Assistance funded Sustainable Cooling and Cold Chain Solutions programme. This programme promotes the adoption of sustainable cold chain solutions by providing policy and technical assistance to improve cold chain availability, and through capacity building to reduce food waste resulting from lack of efficient cold chain in countries predominantly across Africa and Asia. This programme has funded the Africa Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Cooling and Cold Chain (ACES) – a first-of-kind Centre dedicated to sustainable cooling, cold-chain and post-harvest management, launching from March this year.