UK wastes £1.2bn worth of food before it reaches supermarkets

Around 3.6 million tonnes of food, with a value of £1.2bn, goes to waste on UK farms every year, according to a fresh report from the charity WRAP on Thursday.

Crops were being rejected by retailers and thrown away or fed to animals even before reaching the supermarkets, as they either did not meeting quality standards, were faced with fluctuations in demand or had problems during storage, it said.

Peter Maddox, the director of Wrap, said the government-backed body’s detailed study had helped identify key sources of waste and would assist industry with resolving the issue.

WRAP’s estimates of the top average food waste tonnages on farms and percentages of total food harvested were 347,000 tonnes of sugar beet worth £9m, and around 3.9% of the total harvest.

Additionally, 335,000 tonnes of potatoes worth £48m and around 5.4% of the total harvest was wasted.

“There is huge potential to reduce the amount of surplus and waste by promoting best practice, and that’s where our work is now focused," Maddox said.

"We want to increase redistribution of surplus food as has happened across the retail sector."

He added that the charity had set up a network to connect farmers and small-scale producers to identify new outlets for surplus food, including charities.

Jack Ward, the chief executive of the British Growers Association, said acknowledging the scale of the surplus was key to progress.

"As the sustainability of our food production systems comes under increasing scrutiny, reducing waste at every point in the food supply chain will be an increasing priority,” he said.