Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 28 February 2023
148. Deputy Alan Dillon asked the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications the work that has been done to date on implementing a law preventing supermarkets from throwing out food that is fit for purpose; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [9935/23]
View answerMy Department published Ireland’s National Food Waste Prevention Roadmap 2023-2025 in November 2022. The Roadmap sets out a number of priority actions to bring the focus on food waste prevention, across key sectors in the food supply chain, together in a coherent manner. Food donation and redistribution plays an important role in preventing food waste and is a key focus of the Roadmap.
In this context it should be noted that significant volumes of surplus food are already donated by retailers to organisations such as FoodCloud for onward distribution to charities.
Examples of actions in the Roadmap that are aimed at further preventing edible food in the retail sector being wasted include:
- Investigate the potential impact of a prohibition on the destruction of edible food in advance of its ‘use-by’ date.
- Investigate the regulatory and legal barriers to ‘Good Samaritan’ acts of donation and whether mandatory donation of edible food from retail outlets would reduce food waste.
- Using the EPA’s Food Waste Charter, support a voluntary target with retailers and the processing industry for a percentage of edible food to be donated.
My Department will be progressing the implementation of such actions in accordance with the associated timelines set out in the National Food Waste Prevention Roadmap 2023-2025.
