£15mn fund to prevent food waste from farms back on the cards
Melanie May | 8 January 2025 | News
The Government has pledged £15mn in a fund to help rescue more food from the farm gate – reigniting plans were originally announced by the previous Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in February 2024, but put on hold following the general election.
The £15 million fund is to help farmers redistribute surplus food with the aim of preventing millions of meals worth of edible food from going to waste. It will see grants starting from £20,000 made available to the not-for-profit food redistribution sector in England.
The funding could go towards enabling successful applicants to buy new equipment, such as balers or hoppers, to allow bulky food items to be collected or processed into parcels, and technology to help donors and food redistribution charities work more closely. Money could also help provide more training to staff, to enhance their IT and food safety skills.
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Circular Economy Minister Mary Creagh said:
“Our new fund will help the charitable sector to work more closely with farmers, helping to find new opportunities to get their world-leading produce to those most in need within our communities.”
Prior to Sunak announcing the fund at last year’s National Farmers’ Union (NFU) Conference, a campaign by Fareshare and The Felix Project had already been calling for support of this kind for several years. They were joined by The Evening Standard in September 2023, after it revealed that 2.9 million tonnes, enough for 7 billion meals, of good-to-eat farm produce was being burned, buried in landfill, or sent to plants to produce biogas.
Following the general election, The Felix Project, Fareshare and other food redistribution charities had called upon Labour to honour the previous pledge.
Welcoming the news, in a joint statement Charlotte Hill, CEO of The Felix Project, and Kris Gibbon-Walsh, CEO of FareShare, said:
“After years of campaigning by food redistribution charities, we are thrilled to see this fund come to fruition. We are pleased that the government has recognised that too much food goes to waste on our farms, and that it should be redistributed to feed people who need it.
“We look forward to acting quickly with the government, the charity sector, and farmers to maximise the impact of this initiative during British growing season, ensuring surplus food reaches as many people as possible. We have a proven model which funds farmers to redistribute their unsold food, which means that together, we can take meaningful steps toward achieving a zero-waste Britain.”
The money will enable food redistribution charities to invest in the means to rescue more British grown food. The Felix Project hopes to be a beneficiary and use it to expand its existing operations rescuing farm gate food. Last year alone its volunteers picked almost 100 tonnes of fresh produce from farms near London.
Hill added:
“It is a scandal to see food, grown on UK farms, going to waste, especially given the increasing number of people who are experiencing food insecurity. The Felix Project found 1 in 8 working London families use a food bank every week to help feed their children. We deliver to around 1,200 community organisation every year, all working hard to feed people living with food insecurity, but the demand is so much more. We have a long waiting list of organisations desperately wanting food, but we do not have it to give. This funding has the potential to unlock huge supplies of healthy and nutritious produce and help The Felix Project deliver even more meals in 2025.”
Also commenting, Harriet Lamb, CEO of WRAP, said:
“It gives a flying start to the New Year, ensuring that food charities and the farming sector can both make a difference immediately and can develop long term solutions. Every year, the amount of surplus food being redistributed is going up, but sadly the need is also increasing so this gives a much-needed boost. Last year, 191,000 tonnes of food from retailers, food manufacturers, the hospitality sector and UK farms – worth £764 million – was redistributed with the potential to make 450 million meals.”
The fund will also help the government deliver on their promise to move towards a circular economy and support the Courtauld Commitments, which is managed by charity WRAP, and aims to deliver a more sustainable supply chain, tackling food waste, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and water usage.
Full information on the fund is expected to be announced early this year.
About Melanie May
Melanie May is a journalist and copywriter specialising in writing both for and about the charity and marketing services sectors since 2001. She can be reached via thepurplepim.com.