Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein)
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111. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine to outline his plans to introduce legislation requiring supermarkets and large food retailers of a certain size to donate and make available, without charge, any unsold and edible food stuffs to registered charitable organisations and food banks, while also making it a criminal offence for such businesses to dispose of and destroy edible produce without having first offered it to these groups; if he has given consideration to the potential benefit which such legislation may yield in the reduction of food wastage; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [43201/15]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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Retail legislation on the lines proposed does not come within the remit of my Department. The STOP Food Waste programme, which is funded under the EPA National Waste Prevention Programme, supports homes and businesses to prevent food waste. The programme website, Stopfoodwaste.ie, is a valuable component of the campaign and provides advice and tips to businesses and large organisations on reducing food waste.

As I indicated in Replies to Parliamentary Questions 21940/15, 29478/15 and 22054/15, I am aware of the success of voluntary initiatives by organisations such as BiaFood and FoodCloud which have worked with large retail outlets to offer edible food to charities in a safe, efficient and responsive way. Earlier this year I visited the BiaFoodInitiative regional hub in Little Island, Cork, the first of three planned hubs, which is offering an infrastructure to accept and redistribute large volumes of surplus food to an industry standard, as well as the latest in software technology to track and trace all product movements from point of entry to the end user, and a strong voluntary organisation model. BiaFoodInitiative have met Tesco, who are providing equipment and some other support. The Department of Social Protection has supported staffing of the hub and the Food Safety Authority of Ireland has provided advice on carrying out the business safely and in compliance with the food regulations, as such organisations come under the definition of a food business in the general food law. In March BiaFoodInitiative joined Bord Bia’s online Origin Green Platform, which provides access to a network of over 400 companies, who could include this as a waste reduction measure in their Origin Green action plans.

FoodCloud connects businesses that have too much food with charities in communities that have too little. Using their app, or through their website, participating businesses can upload details of their surplus food and the time period in which the food can be collected. The first charity to accept the offer collects it directly from the business. By donating surplus food to various charities, businesses can assist charities to reduce their food costs and so allow them to redirect funding to programs to assist the disadvantaged, creating tangible and long lasting local benefits. Following a successful pilot programme, Tesco Ireland and FoodCloud last year announced a partnership that will see all surplus food from Tesco’s 146 stores redistributed to charities and community groups through the use of FoodCloud’s innovative app. There is much to be said for promoting voluntary engagement by the industry with such initiatives before consideration by Government on whether legislation is appropriate.