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Sector specific actions to support delivery of the UK Food Waste Reduction Roadmap.

This guide is a summary of the top actions from best practice guidance developed by WRAP, Defra, and the FSA for each highly wasted food category that industry can adopt to reduce household food waste.

This updated guidance (Publication date November 2017, updated August 2023) helps retailer and supply chain businesses identify and implement actions that deliver the greatest reductions to help consumers reduce household food waste, by explaining and demonstrating which changes to fruit and vegetable products, packs, labels and the retail environment are most effective and impactful.

This guidance has been designed in collaboration with signatories of the Courtauld Commitment 2030 and members of The UK Plastics Pact to optimise savings in plastic packaging and food waste. The collaboration is also developing a Pathway to selling more uncut fresh produce loose (‘the Pathway’) to identify which fresh produce items will be sold loose and when.

Research published by WRAP in 2022 found that adopting these actions for the five items studied (apples, bananas, broccoli, cucumber and potatoes) alone could:

• Prevent 100,000 tonnes of household food waste each year.
• Amount to 10,300 tonnes of plastic packaging removed.
• This would deliver a combined emissions equivalent to 130,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year.

Since Angus Soft Fruits started their Food Waste Reduction Roadmap journey, they have managed to have a 29% reduction in food waste.

Around 320,000 tonnes of edible fresh fruit and 1.3 million tonnes of edible fresh vegetables and salad are wasted in UK homes each year, worth an estimated £3.8 billion. Approximately £2.2 billion of this is wasted because it is not eaten in time.

The effects of climate change are becoming ever more visible and damaging, and the security of our food supply is being tested to its limits. 

Taking action through Courtauld 2030 is more important than ever.

A ground-breaking, industry wide roadmap and toolkit that:

• Allows businesses to measure and report consistently and with confidence.
• Helps food businesses take targeted action to reduce waste in their own operations, their supply chain and from consumers.
• Helps the food sector deliver against Courtauld Commitment 2030 targets.
• Helps the UK deliver its part in delivering the UN's Sustainable Development Goal 12.3.

• Target: Emphasising that best practice is to set a target that ‘meets or exceeds’ SDG target 12.3.
• Measure: Clarifying that ‘measure’ means ‘measure and report to WRAP.’
• Act: There are now separate milestones for each of the three action areas of operational food waste, collaborative action and citizen food waste so that progress can be tracked, and relevant action taken to accelerate progress further if required.

The research looked at: 

• If packaging extends the shelf life of fruit and vegetables;
• If selling items loose enables households to buy an appropriate amount for their needs; and
• How people make decisions about when to throw away fruit and vegetables, and what role does a ‘Best Before’ date have on these decisions.

Ground-breaking research into the relationship between plastic packaging and five fruit and vegetable items frequently wasted at home, as well as the impact of date labels and storage temperatures, reveals significant opportunities to reduce both food waste and plastic packaging.

Highlighting progress made in the third year of the Food Waste Reduction Roadmap:

• 251,000 tonnes of food worth £365 million saved from waste.
• 670,000 tonnes of GHG emissions potentially avoided.
• 145 million meals redistributed.
• Major opportunities for greater impact remain – industry action focused on Hospitality and Food Service sector and whole chain collaboration.

“simple low cost changes can have a big impact”