Food waste: Minister Ryan highlights actions to prevent edible food in the retail system being wasted

Environment Minister Eamon Ryan told the Dáil that the Food Waste Prevention Roadmap is looking at the impact of banning the destruction of edible food in advance of its use by date; the regulatory and legal barriers to “Good Samaritan” acts of food donation and whether it should establish a voluntary scheme with an annual target to prevent food that is fit for purpose being wasted.

He told the Dail “My 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.

“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.”