Around a third of all food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted. In order to help combat this issue we're working to reduce waste or put as much of it as possible to good use.
As a priority, this means sending surplus food from our stores to our charity food donation partners. Where we can’t donate to charity, we send bread, fruit & vegetables to UK farms via our partners to form an ingredient in animal feed.
Reducing food waste
We have committed to reducing food waste by 50 per cent across the whole value chain by 2030. In 2013 we began sending surplus bread, where we were unable to donate it to charity, to farms to be made into animal feed. Last year alone we sent almost 8,000 tonnes of unsold bread to farms.
This year we have built on this work and from summer 2021 will be diverting unsold fruit, vegetables and salad to animal feed, where we are unable to donate it to charity. We sell our unsold stock to our partners who in turn process this product to make sure it’s free of packaging, unwanted products and chopped where necessary to sell onto farmers in the UK. Farmers then use the fruit, vegetables and salad as part of their feed for farm animals.
All of the product that our partners produce for farms is FEMAS assured, meaning it meets all standards and is safe for use in animal feed.
The infographic below shows the breakdown of our food waste and surplus food over the past year. For more information on our approach to reducing food waste, see our dedicated food waste page.
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