Supermarkets have been urged to end buy one get one free (BOGOF) deals to cut “morally repugnant” food waste.
A report by the House of Lords European Union Committee said that 15 million tonnes of food is wasted in the UK each year.
And it urged retailers to behave more responsibly with farmers and avoid cancelling orders at the last minute.
However, the British Retail Consortium told the BBC that the report “had not appreciated what is already happening”.
In the report, the peers also criticised the EU’s “fragmented and untargeted” attempts to tackle the problem.
The committee is calling for more surplus food to be passed to charities and food banks.
The report said retailers were able to pass on food waste “from the store to the household” by the use of special offers such as BOGOF deals.
Committee chair Baroness Scott, said: “Not only is food waste morally repugnant, but it has serious economic and environmental implications.
“The fact that 90 million tonnes of food is wasted across the EU each year shows the extent of the problem and explains why we are calling for urgent action.”
The committee’s demands include a five-year plan by the European Commission to reduce waste across the EU.
The amount of food discarded by consumers in industrialised nations is equivalent to nearly the entire level of net food production of sub-Saharan Africa, the committee noted.