Hopes have been raised that long-promised requirements for large businesses to report on food waste will form part of the forthcoming circular economy strategy. By Nick Hughes.
Could mandatory food waste reporting be back on the policy agenda?
A year has passed since a group of more than 30 businesses including Tesco, Nestlé, Compass Group and Bidfood signed an open letter to then Defra secretary of state Steve Reed calling for greater transparency over food waste in order to incentivise better behaviours and more efficient processes.
Since then, ministers have largely been silent on the matter. That changed last week when Mary Creagh, the minister who holds the waste brief, was asked during Defra oral questions whether the government is once again considering the case for mandatory reporting of food waste.
The question came from Dame Meg Hillier MP, who counts food waste businesses Too Good To Go and Winnow Solutions among those located within her Hackney South and Shoreditch constituency. In response, Creagh said the government’s circular economy taskforce is “considering the potential benefits of a mandatory food waste reporting requirement for large food businesses”.
The taskforce is an independent expert advisory group established in November 2024 to support the government in creating a circular economy strategy for England. The strategy was originally slated for publication this autumn but is now expected in the spring of 2026. In March this year, Reed set out his vision for a circular economy in a speech in London that included a pledge to “tackle food waste to improve food security and bring benefits for consumers”.
The prospect of mandatory food waste reporting for England (waste is a devolved issue) was first floated by the UK government way back in its 2018 resources and waste strategy. The Conservative government reaffirmed its commitment to explore the proposal in the 2022 food strategy and subsequently consulted on it, however the policy was never enacted after flip-flopping from successive Defra ministers.
Since Labour entered government it has forged ahead with plans to require businesses to report on the healthiness of their food sales, however it is understood plans to introduce mandatory food waste reporting have received push back from HM Treasury despite having been approved by Defra earlier this year.
Proponents of the policy believe it is needed to give reduction efforts a much needed shot in the arm. The government has committed to halve food waste by 2030 in line with UN sustainable development goal 12.3, however the UK is currently on a trajectory to achieve just 30% by 2030, according to Wrap’s latest progress report for the Courtauld Commitment 2030 (recently rebranded as the UK Food and Drink Pact).
Although over 400 businesses had committed to Wrap’s food waste reduction roadmap as of the latest update in December 2024, key milestones are a long way from being achieved. The percentage of businesses to have set a food waste reduction target sat at 25% in 2023 (the latest year of measurement) versus an 80% target for 2025, while just 30% of large businesses were measuring and reporting food surplus and food waste, versus an 85% target for 2025.
“At Too Good To Go, we believe that the time for voluntary food waste reporting is behind us – mandatory food waste reporting is essential to meet the UK’s 2030 target of halving food waste,” said Adam Isaacs, UK & Ireland public affairs manager at Too Good To Go which operates an app-based surplus food marketplace and coordinated last year’s business letter to Reed alongside the British Retail Consortium.
Isaacs suggests strong support for mandatory reporting among businesses is a pragmatic response. “Accurate data highlights waste hotspots, turning a costly problem into a strategic opportunity,” he told Footprint. “Evidence shows that investing in food waste reduction delivers measurable returns through improved efficiency, reduced costs, and increased profitability.”
In last year’s letter to Reed, business signatories wrote: “We have now reached the point where there is a greater opportunity cost of not introducing mandatory food waste reporting than any real costs resulting from the policy, financial or otherwise.”
