Dr Carrie Bradshaw speaks at Westminster Food and Nutrition Forum policy conference
The Westminster Food and Nutrition Forum organises senior-level conferences on public policy relating to food and nutrition.
The School of Law’s Dr Carrie Bradshaw was recently invited to speak at a Westminster Food and Nutrition Forum policy conference on ‘Next steps for food waste and reporting’
Westminster Food and Nutrition Forums are frequently a platform for major policy statements from Ministers, regulators, government officials, opposition speakers, and senior opinion formers in industry and interest groups on topical policy agendas.
The event followed the government’s consultation on introducing mandatory food waste measurement and reporting for large businesses.
Dr Bradshaw spoke alongside representatives from key food waste stakeholders, including government, the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP), WWF and agri-food businesses to make three main points, all echoing her submission to the consultation.
- Mandatory food waste measurement and reporting is a necessary, but not sufficient, measure to tackle food waste. It is unlikely, alone, to prevent food waste.
- Measuring and reporting food waste ought to be seen as a part of a bigger regulatory puzzle. More work needs to be done to explore where such an obligation fits in with that broader puzzle, paying attention to responsibility for food waste prevention is distributed across the supply chain particularly retailers and other large corporations.
- If mandatory measurement and reporting is to reduce food waste, it will need to properly enforced by a well-resourced regulator, and the obligations may need to be ‘firmed up’, perhaps through narrative and supply chain reporting obligations that connect measurement with targeted actions that prevent waste.
