Tuesday 8th July 2008
Food costs are being inflated due to the amount UK citizens throw away, the prime minister has noted.
Gordon Brown asserted that reducing the amount of food wasted across the country as a whole could in turn help lower the cost of items.
"If we are to get food prices down, we must do more to deal with unnecessary demands, such as by all of us doing more to reduce our food waste," he commented.
The suggestion came ahead of the G8 summit in Japan, at which food and fuel are among the priorities for discussion.
Meanwhile, Mr Brown also recently noted that food prices in the UK are linked with supplies from other countries around the world.
As a result, he claimed that it is impossible for the nation to lower its own food prices in isolation from countries elsewhere.
His comments were accompanied by the publication of a report by the Cabinet Office into the UKs consumption of food.
The study found that £10 billion is wasted each year in the UK after being spent on food items which then go unused.
Elsewhere in the world, problems with storage and transportation lead to further food going to waste, the research observed.
At the G8 summit, food and fuel were identified as two of the main threats to the stability of the global economy at the moment.
However, news agency Agence France-Presse noted that no firm steps had been announced by delegates to tackle the issue of fuel prices by the second day of the event.
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