The House of Lords EU Sub-Committee on Agriculture, Fisheries, Environment and Energy will next week take evidence from representatives of Tesco, Waitrose and the waste industry as part of their inquiry into the EU’s contribution to Food Waste Prevention.

On Tuesday 10 December in Committee Room 1 of the House of Lords the Committee will hear from:

10:15am    Matt Simister, Group Food Sourcing Director, Tesco

                     Mark Little, Food Waste Reduction Manager, Tesco

11:00am    Quentin Clark, Head of Corporate Social Responsibility, Waitrose.

The Committee will question the witnesses on the level of food waste within their businesses – Tesco recently announced 28,500 tonnes of food was wasted in the first six months of 2013, but Waitrose does not publish figures -  what role supermarkets can play in reducing food waste at the beginning of the food chain and how they ensure that unsold but edible food is redistributed and what legal obstacles prevent them from doing more of this.

On Wednesday 11 December in Committee Room 3 of the House of Lords the Committee will take evidence from:

10:30am   Roy Hathaway, Europe Policy Advisor, Environmental Services Association (ESA)

                    Stuart Hayward-Higham, Technical Development Director, Sita

               Robert Hunt, Executive Director, Veolia

11:30am   Charlotte Morton, Chief Executive, the Anaerobic Digestion and Biogas Association (ADBA),

                     David Baldock, Executive Director the Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP)

The Committee will ask the witnesses about how the waste and anaerobic digestion industries encourage waste prevention, how levels of food waste can be more accurately monitored through more separate collections of food waste from other waste,  what role the EU can play in encouraging research and innovation to reduce food waste and how food waste should be defined at the EU Level.

The evidence session can be followed online at www.parliamentlive.tv