Every year, UK Supermarkets throw away around 200,000 tonnes of food - that’s the equivalent of over 350 million meals. This shocking stat was published in 2021, and brought light to a lesser-known issue. This then pushed supermarkets to start sharing just how much food waste they were reducing year on year with shoppers.

After years of discussion on the topic, DEFRA made an executive decision in June 2023 NOT to make food waste monitoring mandatory for large food businesses, instead letting supermarkets monitor and share their own waste-saving stats (which sparked outrage). On top of this, there was a shocking announcement last week from Tesco that they made a miscalculation: accidentally sharing stats that were actually double the true figure of their food waste efforts. So, the pressure’s now on… and the question is: who’s responsible for making sure these sorts of errors don’t happen again? It’s time to Dish The Dirt.

THE TESCO FOOD WASTE SCANDAL

So, what’s the big deal? They slipped up? 

Over the past few years, Tesco has been advocating  for more transparency on food waste reporting – being extremely vocal in encouraging other businesses to voluntarily report their food waste data and leading the pack in its food waste reduction efforts. In 2022, they  announced to shoppers that they’d managed to reduce their food waste by 45%, and were bringing their target deadline (to halve food waste) forward from 2030 to 2025. On top of this, they’d hoped that their spectacular performance would help to urge other businesses to follow suit in upping their efforts.

Tesco had calculated this figure using data from their waste processing company (who were responsible for taking the food waste and sending as much as possible to feed livestock). However, The Grocer reported that Tesco had actually been misinformed as to how much of their food waste ended up as animal feed. In reality a large proportion was actually going to an anaerobic digestion plant (where it would be broken down by bacteria). Although this is better than sending it to landfill, if not managed properly it can release pollutants into the environment - meaning it is still technically recognised as food waste.

Tesco have now had to drop their food waste reduction stat to just 18%. Although this is concerning for Tesco in terms of future statistics being accurate… coming clean about this discovery and taking action definitely deserves credit. In reality, it now opens up a bigger conversation about food waste reporting in the industry as a whole.

DEFRA’S TAKE ON THINGS

The government has been clear on the fact that they see tackling food waste as a priority and, whilst this news might be embarrassing for Tesco, this incident clearly shows the need for clear reporting standards.

In November 2023, DEFRA made the decision to stick with the current voluntary method for big businesses, despite 80% of 4000 experts and businesses consulted on the topic being in favour of mandatory food reporting (as well as the government’s own climate and waste experts). The support was based on the fact that measuring food waste makes it easy for businesses to spot where it can be reduced. This not only helps the environment, but studies have shown that there’s a £14 return on every £1 a business spends on cutting food waste (so it’s a win win). Despite this data, DEFRA insists that it would be too expensive for businesses (claiming it could drive food prices up) and would take too much admin.

WILL DEFRA DO A U-TURN?

People are angry. This Tesco scandal was the final straw after months of campaigning for DEFRA to reconsider their decision… and the people have been heard. Just a few days ago, Steve Barclay (Secretary of State for Environment) promised to reopen the conversation and DEFRA are heading out again to ask businesses for their opinions on the situation.

With the country's leading supermarkets (like Tesco, Waitrose and Ocado) keen to make this work, a petition started by the general public growing, and the government's own experts fighting for these changes… DEFRA’s decisions so far are being called being lazy, immoral and even illegal. We’re all here trying to enact change where we can, so it’s super frustrating to be so close to an impactful step in the right direction just to be stopped by the government getting wrapped up in its own red tape.

Transparency makes sense. It’s time for them to clean up their act.