Tesco To Give Surplus Food To Charity

[Colin James]

Fair play to Tesco and what a great idea!

 

 

Tesco has finalised a deal to give all surplus food from its stores to charity.

The UK’s biggest grocery chain hopes to involve 5,000 local charities and groups in an initiative that aims to eradicate food waste and help vulnerable people.

 

The retailer’s latest figures show 55,400 tonnes of food were thrown away at its stores and distribution centres in the UK last year, of which around 30,000 tonnes could otherwise have been eaten – equivalent to around 70 million meals.

 

The plan is a nationwide roll-out of a 14-store pilot called the Community Food Connection, which over the last six months has generated more than 22 tonnes of food, the equivalent of 50,000 meals.

 

It operates by using a digital open platform called FareShare FoodCloud that allows store staff and charities to liaise to distribute surplus food.

 

It launches in 15 cities and regions this week, including Manchester, Birmingham, Southampton and Portsmouth, and will cover all stores by the end of 2017.

 

Tesco and FareShare are appealing for 5,000 charities and community groups to join up and receive the food.

 

Tesco is also calling on other retailers to adopt FareShare FoodCloud to create an industry-wide platform.

 

The initiative also includes the launch of a new ‘Perfectly Imperfect’ range of so-called wonky vegetables that previously may have been thrown away and will be on sale at low prices, in line with several other grocers.

 

Tesco chief executive Dave Lewis said: ‘We believe no food that could be eaten should be wasted. That’s why we have committed that no surplus food should go to waste from our stores.

 

‘We know it’s an issue our customers really care about, and wherever there’s surplus food at Tesco stores, we’re committed to donating it to local charities so we can help feed people in need.

 

‘But we know the challenge is bigger than this and that’s why we’ve made a farm to fork commitment to reduce food waste upstream with our suppliers and in our own operations and downstream in our customers’ own homes.’

 

FareShare chief executive Lindsay Boswell said: ‘We are delighted to be offering our store level solution in partnership with Tesco who are demonstrating real leadership in tackling food surplus.

 

‘FareShare FoodCloud is a natural extension of our work together which has already provided nine million meals to help feed vulnerable people.’

 

Read more here:

[Penyffan]

This appears to be a very encouraging move. Well done to Tesco. However, is the voluntary sector geared up to what will potentially be a huge increase in food donations? It would be worth getting some sort of idea of the groups that would avail themselves of food under this scheme in Herefordshire. Clearly there is the Hereford Food Bank, and I know of at least one church who also benefit from donations from Waitrose for their "Meals on a Monday". What else is happening in the county?

[dippyhippy]

Positive news.

 

For far too long, there has been too much food waste from the big supermarkets. Good to see that Tesco appear to be leading the way in stopping the ridiculous practise, which sees perfectly edible food thrown away when people are going hungry.

 

Next.... we need to sort out the root causes of why so many folks are in need of food banks in 2016.

[Steve Major]

Well done to Tesco for taking the initiative, I agree, we should not have starving people in 2016. Lets hope other supermarkets and companies follow their lead.

[K.Butt]

About time! Well done to Tesco though for leading the way. 

[Denise Lloyd]

If a bottle of olive oil has not got a life span of over 12 months it will be not put on the shelves and goes to waste. Same with cereals I think.

 

If anything that commemorates something special eg Olympics is not sold during the life span of said event the packaged products go to waste

 

So well done Tesco for doing this long overdue I think!