Supermarkets pledge to come clean on giant
food waste mountains

Asda, Sainsbury’s and Morrisons, as well as Marks & Spencer, Waitrose and the Co-operative, will collectively release regular updates on the amount of food thrown out by stores from early next year, the British Retail Consortium (BRC) announced.

Tesco was the first to release its figures, in October, revealing it generated 28,500 tonnes of food waste at its stores and distribution centres in the first six months of last year alone.

It announced it was to drop some food promotions after finding that two-thirds of produce grown for bagged salad is wasted – 35 per cent of it in the home.

The retailer also found that 40 per centof apples are wasted, as are just under half of bakery items.

Figures from the Government’s waste reduction advisory body, Waste and Resources Action Programme (Wrap), say that 15 million tonnes of food are discarded every year in the UK.

The BRC said the UK retail industry will announce a range of “ambitious” targets, including a collective pledge to reduce absolute carbon emissions by 25 per cent by 2020, “putting the industry well on course to meet the 80 per cent overall target set by the UK Climate Change Bill”.

It said the supermarkets signed up to the initiative have committed to publish their data on food waste created at the retail stage, along with annual progress reports, and are working with consumers to help cut food waste in the home.

Other new targets include a commitment to reducing emissions from refrigeration gases by 80 per cent by 2020, and to divert less than one per cent of waste to landfill by the same year.

BRC director general Helen Dickinson said: “Retailers in the UK have made significant progress in reducing their impact on the environment. I’m delighted that the signatories are pushing themselves to achieve against even more ambitious commitments, having gone above and beyond the last set of targets.”

Wrap welcomed the BRC’s initiative. A spokeswoman said: “Wrap works with the BRC and the retail sector through the voluntary agreements, the Courtauld Commitment and the Sustainable Clothing Action Plan 2020 Commitment. By 2015, Wrap envisages both agreements will have made a significant contribution to reducing the environmental footprint of grocery and clothing products.”

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