Food campaigners have launched a legal challenge to the government’s decision to stick with a voluntary system for food waste measurement and reporting.
Campaign group Feedback, which has spearheaded the legal challenge, says the food industry should be made to report how much food is going to waste.
It says the costs of such a system would prove cheaper for shoppers and cut food waste, which currently amounts to at least 9.5 million tonnes a year.
More than two-thirds of that waste is edible and 165,000 tonnes is suitable for redistribution, according to the group's figures.
The current voluntary approach to food waste reporting has collectively saved 251,000 tonnes of food from going to waste, worth £365 million, since 2005.
This figure could only be improved if the measuring and reporting were mandatory, campaigners say.
Following Defra's response to a consultation on mandatory reporting, Feedback has sent a pre-action protocol letter signalling the start of the judicial review process.
Defra’s response to the consultation suggests it is in favour of sticking with a voluntary system of reporting because of the “high costs” of a mandatory system.
Feedback says this approach is 'irrational', as measuring food waste improves data, which in turn helps businesses to spot opportunities to cut food waste.
The group says the consultation on whether to introduce mandatory reporting of food waste was 'unlawful' as Defra’s resulting decision was "not based on a reasonable or rational view of the evidence".
Carina Millstone, executive director of Feedback, said: “The government's decision to scrap its plans to introduce mandatory food waste reporting for large and medium businesses is perplexing at best, and potentially illegal at worst.
"Our lawyers’ letter to the Secretary of State sets out why she must reverse her decision, which flagrantly ignores her own evidence, the advice of her own experts and the preference of the vast majority of consultation respondents.
"Mandatory food waste reporting is a no-brainer, and the government can’t simply ditch it if it is to tackle the climate emergency.”
Feedback is represented in its legal challenge by law firm Leigh Day.
