WRAP has announced its annual UK Surplus Food Redistribution data, showing solid progress in 2022 with approximately 170,000 tonnes of surplus food being received by redistribution organisations equating to just over 400 million meals.

Catherine David, director of behaviour change and business programmes, said: “Surplus food redistribution is a continued success story, with increased items being directed to those who need them. Optimising refrigeration and freezing facilities means that a wider range of food can reach people. While great strides have been made, WRAP urges the food sector to do more. Businesses working in collaboration with the redistribution industry now need to find solutions to other issues which prevent access to harder to reach surplus.”

The latest official redistribution figures highlight that the tonnes of surplus food redistributed by charitable and commercial channels have both continued to rise. Charitable channels exceed commercial channels at 70 per cent to 30 per cent currently.

For data submitted in 2022 to WRAP, the retail sector remained the largest source of redistributed surplus food (41 per cent), followed closely by manufacture (32 per cent). The Hospitality and Food Service sectors saw the highest relative growth over the past four years (10 per cent).

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