Report Reveals Brexit Stalls U.K. Food Waste Prevention Efforts

A new report from Wrap reveals that food waste prevention progress in the U.K. has been stalled due to Brexit.

According to The Grocer, the report was conducted at roughly 60 supermarkets and examined 2,000 food products. It found that many retailers had done nothing or not enough to improve labeling that could prevent consumer waste.

Wrap’s report summarizes progress against eight key areas of action where food labeling changes could prevent waste, including advice on how and where to store food, as well as at what temperature. Yet seven out of eight key product areas had either seen no change or a shortfall in the action needed, including almost three quarters of milk, yogurts and hard cheeses carrying no advice of what temperature the products should be stored at, according to the report.

Wrap also recommends retailers remove open life statements completely or replace them with “best within” labels, where there is no food safety issue involved.

The Grocer has more:

Action by retailers which could help to prevent more than a million tonnes of food waste has been stalled because of Brexit, according to a major new report from Wrap.

The report, which was conducted at nearly 60 supermarkets and examined 2,000 food products, found many retailers had either done nothing or not enough to improve labelling advice across a range of key products which could prevent consumer waste.

Rather than speeding up efforts to tackle food waste since a previous study was carried out in 2015, the report found progress had been “slowed” because of the uncertainty of labelling requirements and the uncertainty surrounding the timing of Brexit and its outcome.

Read the full article here.