Oct 2022
Hidden Waste Roadmap
The roadmap to tracking and reducing food surplus and waste on UK farms
In the UK an estimated 3.3 million tonnes of food are wasted before making it off farm. Farmers face numerous barriers to accurately tracking and reducing on-farm food waste. In response to this hidden issue, WWF and Tesco have worked with members of the food system, including farmers, suppliers, retailers and NGOs to develop the Hidden Waste Roadmap. This report sets out actions for food system actors between 2022 – 2026 to support farmers in measuring, reporting and reducing food waste on farms.
Through increasing the uptake of measurement and reporting we aim to increase awareness of hotspots of food waste on-farm and empower farmers to reduce them, improving farm profitability and reducing the environmental impact of agriculture. Additionally, we aim to collect substantive enough data to set a baseline for on-farm food waste and track progress more accurately towards UN Sustainable Development Goal 12.3 of a 50% reduction by 2030 and to inform policy and practice shifts within the food system, which support farmers to reduce food surplus and waste levels.