Agriculture committee  Is it getting out as much as I'd like it to? Absolutely not. Part of the reason is that it's not on the radar of many businesses. I'm envious of what WRAP has been able to achieve. It hasn't been able to achieve that with a $20 donation overnight; it's taken years. That's spawne

Agriculture committee  The WRAP program continues to exist. Its public support from the U.K. government has been reduced, though it's also working more and more with mainland Europe. Food waste has become a highly political issue in the U.K., the same as in many other jurisdictions. The fact that it ha

Agriculture committee  There are some initiatives going on in Canada at the moment—for obvious reasons, I don't want to mention names—for diverting to processing products that aren't suitable for going to retail stores. One of the challenges, though, is that our food industry is so complex that it's of

Agriculture committee  Some of the distributors and the food banks are working together well now. Certainly, one thing I would encourage more is that there has been talk about a tax incentive, and that is certainly one area that could work. The other area that could work is more explicit protection. So

Agriculture committee  We don't do it specifically in that area. However, I was talking just last week to a major food manufacturer, and there were issues regarding the U.S.-Canadian border that led to an entire 40-foot container load of product going to waste.

Agriculture committee  I'd like to see more emphasis on developing a business case. Many businesses don't see the connection between reducing food waste and increasing profitability. Many businesses don't see it, often because they don't measure it. It's not high on the radar screen. I mentioned WRAP

Agriculture committee  It's very valuable work.

Agriculture committee  —largely lost.... Okay, yes.

Agriculture committee  Those are two great scenarios. I'm not an expert on farmers’ markets. They operate...and most consumers will actually go to a farmers' market for quite different reasons than they'll go to a retail store. They're two very different animals, by large part. The key driver behind

Agriculture committee  —and that goes even in the U.K.

Agriculture committee  It does occur at the consumer level, but part of the reason so much food waste occurs at the consumer level is the way the industry operates, which has led to changes, for instance, in how Tesco operates. It does not do as many of what you now know as the BOGOF, buy one, get one

Agriculture committee  It's a good question. We do quite a bit of consumer research. We do quite a bit of work with the entire value chain, from production inputs at the farm level, through to retail and food service. As part of that, we do quite a bit of consumer research. For instance, we had a peach

Agriculture committee  Food safety definitely plays into food waste or the creation of food waste, but it doesn't necessarily play into it in the way you might expect. For instance, let's go back a few years to XL Foods. All that meat was wasted. That meat could have been used in other respects; it cou

Agriculture committee  I feel that public institutions have a role to play in this. We have seen many regulations introduced. Some of them would increase not reduce food waste. Part of that is its interpretation, as well as the lack of coordination among the different regulations at the different level

Agriculture committee  We know some of the issues surrounding labelling. As you said, the best by date, the use by date, are certainly factors that play into the amount of food waste. Certainly more can be done on coordinating the use of those labels, because for instance you can have two products side