SUPERMARKETS should move away from offers such as "buy one get one free" to help end the "morally repugnant" waste of millions of tonnes of food, a House of Lords committee has said.

The Lords EU Committee also said more unused food should be donated to food banks, rather than sent for composting or landfill.Committee chairman Baroness Scott of Needham Market said the peers were "shocked" at the scale of food waste, which sees 15 million tonnes of food dumped each year in the UK and at least 90 million tonnes across the EU as a whole.

In a report, the committee said the EU's efforts to reduce food waste were "fragmented and untargeted" and called for the new European Commission to publish a five-year strategy within six months of taking office later this year.

Lady Scott said: "Not only is it (food waste) morally repugnant, but it has serious economic and environmental implications.

"Globally, consumers in industrialised nations waste up to 222 million tonnes of food a year, which is equivalent to nearly the entire level of net food production of Sub-Saharan Africa.

"We are calling on the new European Commission, which will be appointed in November this year, to publish a five-year strategy for reducing food waste across the EU, and to do so within six months of taking office."

Lady Scott added: "There is also much that can be done domestically. We are urging the supermarkets to look again at offers such as 'buy one get one free', which can encourage excess consumption which leads to food waste.

"We were shocked at the extent of food waste in the EU. Some efforts are already being made, which is very positive, but much more can be done."