Gordon Brown: Stop wasting food

Poorer households are now spending up to 15 per cent of their incomes on food as "basic staples such as milk, eggs and bread are among the products to have seen the biggest price rises in recent months".

A Downing Street aide said: "The paper argues that we need to take action to reduce food waste…In the UK, recent estimates suggest that households could save up to an average of £420 per household every year by not throwing away a total of 4.1 million tones of food that could have been eaten."

Britain is suffering from some of the highest increases in food prices in the developed world. According to the Office for National Statistics, seasonal food prices have risen by 10pc in the past year. Meanwhile, overall food and drink costs are up by 6 per cent - the highest rate in the Western world, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Today's Cabinet Office study calls into question the growing of biofuels which has recently been encouraged to help reduce the reliance on fossil fuels. However, the Cabinet Office analysis concludes that "the risk of biofuel policies could exacerbate global food price increases over the coming decade."