It takes fresh water, land, labour and energy to produce our food and drink yet there remains a significant problem with over 10 million tonnes of edible food being binned in the UK each year.
The vast majority of the food and drink we supply are ambient shelf stable groceries which lend themselves to low levels of wastage in the factory and in the home but we are not complacent and know there is more we can do to reduce waste in our operations and from field to fork.
Sustainable Development Goal 12.3
We fully support the UN Sustainable Development Goals and have pledged our commitment to goal 12.3. By 2030, halve per capita global food waste at the retail and consumer levels and reduce food losses along production and supply chains, including post-harvest losses.
We are currently mapping out every food waste stream across our operations. In addition to reducing this waste, we are challenging ourselves to find alternate uses for this waste and our priority is ensuring it re-enters the human food chain.
Our target is to reduce food waste in our operations by 50% by 2030 and each year we report the progress we make on our journey.
We need to do more however to address waste in the wider supply chain with our suppliers and also our consumers.
We are encouraging suppliers to take action on food waste in their operations and through our brands we are increasing consumer communication about using our products in the home and seek to provide information and guidance to help them cut down waste.
FareShare
Since 2013 we have been partnered with FareShare, the UK’s leading charity tackling hunger and food waste. Their army of volunteers distributed surplus food and drink to over 10,542 charities and community groups. The food they redistribute contributes towards 131.9 million meals and saves the charity sector £18.5 million.
All food and drink that we cannot sell is donated to FareShare and many of our UK customers have a similar arrangement.
Since this partnership was established we have donated thousands of cases of branded and customer own brand products.
We are currently exploring options to make a similar arrangement with an Italian charity to ensure that any surplus tomato or pulses products from our Foggia site are donated.