Ms Mindy O'Brien:

A month later, I am still going through that 2 kg bag. The thing with cost is, first, loose fruit and vegetables need to be the same price per kilo and, second, education is vital. StopFoodWaste.ie estimates that every kilogram of food people throw away costs them about €3, so each family is throwing out something like €700 or €800 worth of food each year. There needs to be a lot of education about food waste prevention. That programme is underfunded and a lot more could be done with that.

Food waste is a challenging area but, whatever we do, we need to make it cost-competitive because people are driven by cost. That is up to the supermarkets. I would like the committee to bring the supermarkets in and let them explain why they are charging different prices for what looks like the same product.