A national programme has been launched to triple the amount of surplus food redistributed in the UK over the next decade. This initiative is backed by the government and is a collaboration of organisations including Felix, City Harvest, Community Shop, The Bread and Butter Thing, His Church, Feeding Britain, Neighbourly, and the wider Felix and Xcess Networks, forming the Food Redistribution Partnership UK.
More than 1 billion meals' worth of easily accessible surplus food is wasted each year across the UK food sector. This amounts to 470,000 tonnes, which is enough to feed every child in the UK three meals a day for a month. The majority of this waste, around 850 million meals, comes from farms, followed by food manufacturing facilities with 178 million meals. The hospitality and food service sector accounts for 71 million meals, and the retail sector for 12 million meals.
Charlotte Hill, chief executive of the food redistribution organisation Felix, stated that it is currently cheaper for businesses to waste food than to donate it. This is partly due to the corporation tax system not rewarding food donation in the same way as financial donations, and public subsidies for alternative disposal routes like turning food waste into animal feed or biogas.
The Redistribution Revolution, spearheaded by Felix, calls for food businesses to make redistribution the default for surplus food, philanthropists to invest in infrastructure, and the government to modify the tax system to make food donation more financially viable for companies.