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An academic from Harper Adams has spoken with the BBC about the importance of cutting food waste – and the research the University is doing in the area.

Senior Lecturer in Food Nutrition Jon Bentley was invited to talk about the subject with BBC Radio Shropshire’s Clare Ashford as part of the station’s focus on ways we can all cut waste.

Asked by Clare about how much he thinks about food waste in his role, Jon said: “As a food and nutrition lecturer, significantly!

“It’s a really important part of what we teach our students – both on our course but also as a community ourselves.

"It’s really important that we are making people aware of food waste, and we’re hoping to influence people’s practices in that area.”

He explained how education is at the heart of this work, both for the general public in terms of extending their understanding of food preparation, storage and use – and on degree courses, such as the current undergraduate route he lectures on at Harper Adams.

Jon added: “The course is Food Science and Innovation – so we teach a lot of information generally about what a healthy diet is and looks like – we teach about the sustainable nature of that.

“Obviously, we’re a food and institution, so we’re able to draw on our expertise here at the institution, and actually our , to show students where food comes from, the inputs that are involved and the labour, the energy costs, the waste that’s involved in producing food.

“For it to then be wasted in our home - we hope that then students realise that this is a problem, and we look at the strategies people can put in place to minimise that.”

He also set out more about the work the University is currently doing to develop a new global standard which will set a benchmark for managing food loss and waste from farm to fork, and added: “This is work that is driven by one of my colleagues, Dr Iona Huang, who was invited to be part of the committee to write the food waste management standard.

“So, one of the things that we’re involved with now is actually taking that standard out to businesses and asking for their input at an inquiry stage - we’re asking for their feedback on the technical standard to ensure that it’s fit for purpose and can be applied by companies within their systems.  

“We’re interested in any food producer, food manufacturer – it could be any scale, any size – it’s a global piece of work so we are taking responses from across the world, actually – so if anyone is interested they can contact the institution and we can give them the details to .

“There is a part two which is where we share the technical document with people, and they can provide feedback directly through us to the committee, which will hopefully make the document as fit for purpose as possible.

“When the standard is implemented, then companies will be held to that standard: which is why it’s really important for us to get feedback from the companies this standard will apply to before it is finally drafted.”

Clare noted that pulling together this feedback would be a major undertaking for the Harper Adams research team – to which Jon added: “It is - but it’s important work – and that’s why we’re here and this is what we do!

“We’re involved at that sort of level - and hopefully having that kind of impact and influence - on food waste both in this country, but also globally.”

Listen again to the – and if you are a food business which wants to take part in the survey, read more about what it entails here.