Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 6:06 pm on 21 June 2016.
Thank you, Julie Morgan, for those points. I think it’s not just about food waste; I mentioned in my answer to Simon Thomas about the huge amount of food waste that there is, although some is redistributed, and obviously some goes for animal feed, it’s also about encouraging businesses to resource much more efficiently than they do. I’m not quite sure about incentivising large organisations such as Tesco, but I think it’s really important that we work with them to show that, if they do resource efficiently, there are many benefits to their own business, there are benefits to Wales, and of course there are benefits to the individuals who live in Wales. It’s about saving energy in Wales and being that much more sustainable and therefore creating less waste.
I was very interested in the pilot in Cardiff last year about the holiday hungry. I had one in my own constituency, which was run by a church. When you think about it, for a number of children who receive free school meals, what happens during the school holidays? It is a very successful scheme that’s been run for about a year now, in Wrexham, and I’m sure there are examples right across Wales. But, I think it is really important that we work, again, with big companies, maybe big supermarkets, to see if we can somehow redistribute that food in that way.
I mentioned earlier that I met with the FSA this morning, and that was something we talked about, because they feel that, perhaps, some of the big supermarkets are a bit afraid of giving food that is, perhaps, out of date, or past its sell-by date or past its use-by date. So, again, I think it’s really important that we get that right, get that labelling right, about what it all means. For instance, if it’s ‘use by’, that you do follow the instructions carefully, because that tends to be for food that goes off quickly, for instance, whereas if you have the ‘best before’, that tends to be frozen, dried, or tinned, and that’s not really about safety, it’s more about quality, and it can be used past the date. So, I think there is a great deal more that we can do. I’m very interested in the research that came out of WRAP in relation to that, but I think we definitely want to see, as we go through the action plan, that reduction in food waste.