Philip Simpson, commercial director at ReFood, discusses the findings of WRAP’s recent report into commercial food waste trends and explains why the supply chain must be prepared for further disruption as we head into 2023.
Vegetables discarded in field due to Brexit and Covid as divorce bill £5bn higher than expected
09/07/2021
It comes as the Brexit "divorce bill" negotiated by the PM is up to £5 billion higher than the UK government expected.
Farming union chief says situation ‘nothing short of a travesty’, as crops also hit by drought and record heat.
A recent government report warned that labour shortages "caused by Brexit and accentuated by the pandemic" were badly affecting our food and farming sector, with fruit suppliers often forced to leave produce rotting in the fields.
A food manufacturer dubbed ‘the chicken king’ has warned Covid-19 and Brexit could result in the worst food shortages since the war.
Loss of 100,000 hauliers due to Covid and Brexit will cause food ‘rolling power cuts’, experts warn
UK faces food shortages as up to 75% of seasonal worker roles unfilled – even Mail admits Brexit a factor
20/05/2022
Before Brexit most of Britain's seasonal crop pickers came over from eastern Europe.
Tesco has told ministers its suppliers are wasting nearly 50 tonnes of food a week because of the worsening HGV driver shortage, The Grocer has learned.
Tonnes of British-grown fruit wasted over shortages of EU workers amid no deal Brexit fears
04/10/2019
ITV News has figures showing tonnes of food is being wasted, as a shortage of farm workers means some UK crops are not being harvested.
Five hundred tonnes of beetroot is being left to rot due to a collapse in demand, caused by Brexit, a farmer says.
From one end of the supply chain to the other, the UK's food producers have endured a summer of trouble.
The Government’s Fantasy Food Strategy
07/08/2022
The government’s food strategy lacks detail or any plans for implementation, and it is contradicted by its other policies.
Every farmers' worst nightmare is coming to pass; the mass culling of healthy animals because there simply aren't enough butchers to process them and get them off farms... So how did we get here?
Britain has been outside the EU’s legal regime for a year and has faced a number of impacts.
Sir Roger Gale said one firm has had to trash £320,000 worth of produce "because there are no pickers and no drivers".
Labour shortages caused by Brexit and accentuated by the COVID pandemic have badly affected businesses across the food and farming sector and could cause ‘permanent’ damage, UK lawmakers stated in a report published on Wednesday (6 April).
Pig farmers are in a “desperate” position – with culls of thousands of healthy animals and producers quitting the industry, they warned as a summit was held on the crisis.
Firms will have to pass on extra costs of red tape, warns Fresh Produce Consortium.
3.5m heads of broccoli and 1.9m heads of cauliflower have been thrown away by just one producer.
Vets working to tackle pigs’ overcrowding in farms have said Prime Minister Boris Johnson is not taking the abattoir labour shortage seriously, and soon ‘mass culling’ would be the only option left to farmers.
Mass culling of 35,000 pigs and tonnes of crops being left to rot 'caused by Brexit', committee finds
06/04/2022
A lack of food and farm workers “caused by Brexit and accentuated by the pandemic” meant at least 35,000 pigs were culled and tonnes of crops left to rot in the fields last year, a damning report has revealed.
Marks & Spencer has warned of the risk of price pressures, less choice, and food being thrown away when post-Brexit rules on imports from the EU take effect at the start of next month.
National Farmers Union calls for post-Brexit rules on seasonal workers to be eased to plug gaps.
How Brexit and the food supply chain crisis might take a bite out of your Christmas dinner
08/12/2021
With the pandemic worsening supply chain problems and UK worker shortages caused by Brexit, there’s a chance we may need to adapt our Christmas dinners this year.