The food and drink industry in the UK produces 12.6 million tonnes of waste each year.
Changes in available disposal routes due to changing legislation and increasing landfill costs are reshaping the waste landscape for the food and drink industry. A major study concluded that 'waste is a challenge which the food and drink processing industry needs to address with some urgency'1.
While the industry has always strived to use resources efficiently, there are now increased cost pressures to minimise waste at source. Inefficient resource use is an avoidable cost. Envirowise can help the industry make savings through simple, low cost resource efficiency measures.
The cost of waste includes far more than disposal costs. In food processing, the cost of waste can be 5-10 times the cost of waste disposal alone, when the cost of materials, energy, labour, packaging, and treating and handling waste are included.
" ... we can improve efficiency and reduce waste without compromising quality." Becky Woodward, Technical Manager, Burts Potato Chips.
Food waste can also be a source of biomass energy and by-products which can be raw materials for other uses. See Carbon Trust Biomass pages and the National Industrial Symbiosis Project (NISP) for further information.
Key publications
Case studies
More information
1UK Food and Drink Processing Mass Balance 2004.
