THE FIRST year results of the Hospitality and Food Service Agreement (HaFSA) published today by WRAP, show signatories have made over £10 million worth of savings by reducing food waste alone.
The progress made against the waste prevention target shows a reduction in CO2e associated with food and packaging waste of 2.5%, against the overall target of a 5% reduction by the end of 2015.
This achievement highlights the sectors commitment to reducing waste in the first place. This focus on prevention also had the additional benefit of increasing the amount of surplus food being sent for redistribution by 23%.
Progress by signatories against the waste management target has also seen an increase. Here the rate of recycling for both food and packaging waste has increased by 7% against the 2012 baseline, with the overall recycling rate reaching 54%. The target is to increase food and packaging waste recycled, sent to anaerobic digestion or composted to at least 70% by the end of 2015.
To ensure that this progress is maintained and built upon further, individual as well as collective action by signatories is required.
A key part of the progress delivered so far has been the monitoring and measuring of waste. Once a company starts to measure the amount of food waste that is being produced within a business and assigns a cost to it, it is a real wake up call to take action. To highlight how this can be implemented in a business, WRAP has also published case studies and a video where signatories discuss the impact of the HaFSA and how they have taken individual action.
Dr Richard Swannell, Director of Sustainable Food Systems WRAP, said “I’m delighted by the enthusiasm with which HaFSA has been embraced by industry, and acted upon. Today we see the first indication of the positive impact the hard work undertaken by signatories and supporters is having towards the collective HaFSA ambitions.
“There’s no doubt that a lot of work still needs to be done to build upon this positive start, but HaFSA is helping to bring the right people together to deliver solutions. As the comments in this video make clear, actions – whether collective or individual – make business sense and save money.”
