Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Tuesday, 21 May 2024
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action
Circular Economy in the Food Sector: Discussion
Mr. David Flynn:
The main engagement we have is through the food waste charter, whereby we engage with companies to try to come forward to measure food waste, to look at the volume of waste that is produced and the reasons for it and then to commit to reducing it. That is in terms of engagement with retail, the supply chain and food service companies. That food waste charter is our primary mechanism for that. The behavioural insights are about really understanding how people are living their lives right now, what their shopping habits are and what their livelihoods are. That can then inform the design of products in terms of portion sizes, how material is presented in shops and how often people do a shop. Is it a weekly shop or is it catching something on the fly on the way home to prepare a meal? There are new food meal services whereby people can get just the right amount of product to make a meal and that can be delivered to them. There are all these types of innovation that will help with this. As I said in my opening statement, however, it is about trying to encourage a whole-systems approach to that in order that it not only responds to the way in which people actually live their lives but also gives choices in reducing the amount of food waste. If people can only buy four of something but they are going to use two of it, they are obviously going to end up-----