WRAP Announces Resource Action Fund with First Wave of Grants for Food Waste Prevention

The £18 million Resource Action Fund has been established by the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) to support resource efficiency projects, with the goal of diverting, reducing and better managing waste. The Fund will support key policy outcomes in the areas of food, plastics, textiles, recycling infrastructure and litter.

The overall programme is broken down into Large and Small Scale grants. The first strand to open to applications is the Waste Prevention Grant, which aims to improve how organisations handle and distribute leftover food, by investing in infrastructure such as weighing equipment, storage solutions, warehouses, industrial freezers and fridges, labelling equipment and vehicles.

The Large Scale strand will provide capital infrastructure to help address a current capacity gap for redistributing food produced by businesses that is currently being wasted, diverting this to people in need. The Small Scale strand will provide new small-scale capital infrastructure and revenue support to organisations redistributing surplus food from the likes of retailers and food manufacturers.

There is a budget of £5 million for Large Scale grants and individual awards of between £200,000 and £1 million will be provided. £1 million has been allocated for Small Scale grants, supporting projects ranging in value from £20,000 to £170,000.

Organisations based in England that supply surplus food from food businesses, either directly to those in need or to other organisations that do the same, may apply. Large Scale grants are only available to not-for-profit organisations, such as charities, community groups and social enterprises. The Small Scale grants are open to small and medium-sized enterprises (both commercial and not-for-profit).

Environment Secretary Michael Gove said:

“Every year, millions of tonnes of good, nutritious food is thrown away.

“. . . I am opening [a programme] of funding to help organisations ensure that food is not thrown away, but goes to those most in need.

“Together we can deliver real change to stop good food going to waste.”

The deadline for Small Scale applications is 11 July 2019. The deadline for Large Scale applications is 1 July 2019.

More information about this funding opportunity and the application process is available on the GRANTfinder funding information platform. GRANTfinder provides up-to-the minute content, insight and analysis on funding news and policy. To find out more about how GRANTfinder can keep you in the know, and subscription fees, contact us today.