Minister for climate change, biodiversity, & waste Joan Ruddock has rallied the food industry to play a greater part in helping to alleviate food poverty and food waste in the UK at an event hosted by national charity FareShare.

Ruddock said:  “We can all play our part – whether as manufacturers, retailers or consumers.  As a society we have to lead more sustainable lifestyles – and to do so we need to encourage behaviour to reduce the waste we generate.”

There are approximately 4 million people in the UK who can’t afford a healthy diet and rising food costs combined with other economic factors mean the situation could well get worse.

Tony Lowe, CEO of FareShare, the organisation that redistributes good quality surplus food from the food industry to projects supporting disadvantaged people, said: “Food poverty is a big issue in the UK today.  We’ve talked to groups of disadvantaged people, nearly three fifths (58%) have gone without a square meal for a day or more in the last year and of those almost one fifth (17%) have gone without for a week or more. 

“Government is working to try and address this, now we’re calling out to the food industry to play a greater part.  We currently reach an average of 25,000 people with our service, but many more than this are still struggling to access food regularly and the food industry can help us to alleviate this sad reality.”