Tesco’s UK operation has partnered with Irish social enterprise FoodCloud, along with UK food redistribution charity FareShare, to trial the FareShare-FoodCloud App following the success of the FoodCloud scheme in its Irish stores in reducing food waste and supporting local charities.
As with the Irish initiative, store managers will be able to alert charities to the amount of surplus food they have at the end of each day. The charity confirms that it wants the food and picks it up free-of-charge from the store to offer meals to those in need.
With FoodCloud bringing its technology and expertise developed in Ireland, the British beneficiaries will come from the charities that FareShare already works with, including homeless hostels, women’s refuges and breakfast clubs for disadvantaged children.
Tesco CEO Dave Lewis commented, “We don’t throw away much food in our operations, but even the 1% we do throw away amounts to 55,400 tonnes."
He explained that to reduce this amount even further, Tesco will work with FareShare-FoodClound and that, “This is potentially the biggest single step we’ve taken to cut food waste, and we hope it marks the start of eliminating the need to throw away edible food in our stores.”
FareShare CEO Lindsay Boswell remarked,“We understand that customers get angry when they see food being wasted in their local store. We do too, and that is why we have spent 20 years developing our successful charity redistribution model.”
Meanwhile, Iseult Ward, co-founder of FoodCloud said, “We are delighted to be working in partnership with both FareShare and Tesco so that we can bring our solution into the UK to ensure that more charities can benefit. We are looking forward to the developments that will come about as a result of this trial.”
Tesco is currently the only British supermarket to publish its own independently assessed food waste data, with the latest results showing that the amount of food thrown away had dipped from 56,580 tonnes in 2013/14 to 55,400 tonnes in 2014/15.
Tesco reports the food most likely to be thrown away in its stores is from the bakery, followed by fresh fruit and vegetables and convenience items like pre-packaged sandwiches and salads.
© 2015 - Checkout Magazine by Jenny Whelan.
