As the clock ticks on our UN commitment to halve Northern Ireland’s food waste by 2030, supermarkets are trying a range of initiatives in a bid to play their part.
Aside from what we chuck in the bin at home, the second most obvious place we see food nearing the end of its life is when we head shopping.
According to the Nature Food Study 2021, 34% of global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions are created by the world's food systems and it's estimated that 8-10% of those are related to food waste (UNFAO) which is four times global aviation emissions, which are estimated at 2-2.5% (ATAG).
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Our retailers are trying everything from not washing spuds to donating food to charities and partnerships with food apps to ensure food on the brink is eaten by someone.
Here's what they're doing:
Asda
The supermarket tells us they operate a zero waste policy which means reducing, reusing, recycling, redistributing, repurposing and recovering as much operational waste as possible and sending no waste to landfill.
A spokesperson for the supermarket said: “We have a target to reduce food waste by 20% by 2025 and by 50% by 2030.
“We have donated over 300,000 meals in Northern Ireland through our back of store donation scheme. This scheme makes sure that edible food which cannot be sold goes to charities, who help local communities.”
Food the supermarket donates includes non-chilled fruit and vegetables, eggs, tinned products, pasta, rice and bread products which can no longer be sold in store but are still edible. Excess bread is also redistributed for animal feed, while they also give away surplus produce to customers at Christmas and Easter. And they told us they donate any surplus from their Larne depot to Fareshare.
Lidl
The budget retailer has also been busy trying to reduce its food waste. The company says it launched its ‘waste not’ initiative in December 2019 across its 41 NI stores and has seen everything from chilled foods that have reached their best before date to fresh meat, poultry, fish, and chilled products such as prepared salads, cooked meats, milk and yoghurts, qualify for a price reductions.
The supermarket says it has reduced 137.5 tonnes of food waste annually and to date over 5,000,000 items that would have otherwise gone to waste, have been sold to customers at reduced prices.
Their partnership with FoodCloud, established in 2017, also sees surplus fresh fruit, vegetables and ambient products donated to hundreds of charities and community groups across the island of Ireland. They say they've also had a zero waste to landfill policy since 2018 and have committed to becoming a carbon neutral business by 2025, reducing its operational emissions by 46% by 2030.
Conor Boyle, Lidl NI Regional Managing Director said: “We believe it is our responsibility to not only offer the best service for our customers, suppliers and communities but to protect the environment and build a successful, sustainable future. Food waste is one of many areas in which we continue to introduce innovative ways to reduce this burden.
“We’re constantly looking for ways to help consumers make sustainable purchases, without compromising on quality and value. Some of our industry-leading sustainability initiatives to support our customers include introducing reusable fruit and vegetable bags in store, installing customer recycling bins at till points and our flagship ‘Waste Not’ initiative."
Marks & Spencer
M&S Food says it has donated 1,874,572 meals redistributing surplus food waste – through their partner Neighbourly which helps communities and good causes.
A spokesperson said: "We’ve worked with Neighbourly to develop an app that records when M&S colleagues reduce food that’s close to its Use-By or Best Before date, and then monitors if those products are sold at the tills.
"The app automatically connects with the Neighbourly platform to notify its community partners of anything unsold at the end of the day that can be collected from their local stores. The app also allows our stores to donate products where the packaging is damaged but the food inside is safe and good quality."
On top of that the company says it their "popular packaging-free refillable grocery concept Fill Your Own is currently being piloted in 14 stores across the UK including our Lisburn store".
This January, they said they launched a two-month long Sparking Change National Challenge to help customers spark change and enjoy lower carbon diets in 2022.
"The challenge was based on insights from almost 100 families across the country including three from Northern Ireland who took part in a nine-week trial behavioural change trial in partnership with charity Hubbub. Three months later, families who took part in the trial were wasting 90% less food. In February, we helped customers to reduce food waste by sharing recipes and expert tips on batch cooking, storing food to make it last longer and how to best use leftovers."
Sainsbury's
The supermarket says it is committed to reducing food waste by 50% by 2030 and have cut this by 16%. Other recent examples of how they're tackling food waste include a partnership with Neighbourly to manage our back of store food donation programme, helping to connect Sainsbury’s stores with local partners who will redistribute food to those in need.
Since the partnership began in August, they say they've donated 2,614,566 meals which is equivalent to over £4 million saving to charities and community groups.
The company says it has sent zero waste to landfill since 2013 and in 2016 was the first major retailer to phase out multi-buy meals to make sure customers only buy what they need. Meanwhile they have rolled out wonky veg and imperfectly tasty ranges to reduce fruit and veg waste and say they've trialled large scale food waste initiatives to change customer behaviour through our Waste Less Save More campaign
Tesco
The supermarket giant says it is trialling the sale of unwashed potatoes, potentially doubling their shelf-life and reducing food waste, among a range of other initiatives.
They said they have extended their Perfectly Imperfect Range to maximise crops and that to date customers have bought over 50 million packs of Perfectly Imperfect range, saving 44,000 tonnes of fruit and veg at risk of going to waste.
If food cannot be sold, they told us they prioritise its redistribution to charities and community groups and offer to colleagues through our Colleague Shop and that any suitable remaining surplus food is sent to pet food or converted to animal feed while they also supply OLIO app users and donate to FareShare.
Where no other options are available, Tesco said they recover energy from food waste through anaerobic digestion or incineration and that no food waste is sent to landfill in the UK and Ireland while through in-store efforts.
Removing Best Before dates on a selection of fruit and vegetables, working with WRAP to incorporate this into industry guidance on fresh produce labelling has also helped alongside the Tesco Community Cookery School with Jamie Oliver, to teach cooks how to make the most of food donations with specially developed nutritious recipes.
Partnering with Hubbub on the No Time for Waste Challenge, also helped 53 families involved in the challenge decrease food waste by 76% by the end of the trial period.
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