Weekly household food waste collections are rolling out across the country, and soon all recycling firms will have to separate their food waste from general waste. In a recent article by Logistics Matters, Amit Sandhu of Paragon Logistics argued that the new rules target the caddy, despite the most avoidable waste being decided earlier in the temperature-controlled links that set what reaches the shelf fit to sell.
Since the end of March 2026, weekly food waste collections have begun across England, affecting businesses and households alike. By Wednesday 31 March 2027 the rule will extend to everyone, including small businesses with only a few employees. down to the corner shop with a handful of employees.
Food waste collections are targeting a major issue in the UK, with WRAP - a Waste and Resources Action Programme dedicated to improving recycling - revealing that shoppers bin £17 billion worth of food a year, roughly £1,000 for a household of four – with more than 10 million tonnes wasted across the country annually. It is believed that households are responsible for 70% of that figure, with retail only accounting for 2%.
However, Logistics Matters has highlighted that the journey of fresh produce – from loading bays to trailers then cold stores – has a larger impact on when food reaches the waste system than we realise. If you leave a punnet of fresh fruit on a warm dock for hours during summer months, then it doesn’t waste itself at the shop checkout - it loses days in transit and then gets binned at home later. The waste is counted in one place but caused by another, therefore the new food waste rules help keep track of the levels of food waste, but don’t prevent it.
Prevention happens upstream in the cold chain, which can also a food-waste prevention infrastructure. If you store produce, chilled foods and dairy products inside a tight, unbroken temperature band from the supplier’s door onward, you protect the shelf life the retailer is selling against.
Avery Dennison’s recent global study of 3,500 retailers and supply chain leaders found that 56% of businesses can’t say how much food is lost while it’s being moved, and 61% lack full visibility across their operations at all. Amit believes that continuous temperature logging, pre-cooling before load, real-time alerts when a door is open for too long, and a plan for when a unit fails should all be requirements to ensure that food waste is reduced.