Last year, Tesco, the largest grocer in the UK and third largest retailer in the world, reported that its stores produced almost 30,000 tonnes of food waste in the first half of 2013. A breakdown of their most wasted food is summarized below:
Source: Tesco
According to Tesco, a whopping 68% of their bagged salads go to waste. Nearly half of their baked goods and apples are never consumed. That’s a lot of food (and money) being poured down the drain.
Tesco has taken steps to reduce their environmental footprint, citing reducing food waste as one of their “Three Big Ambitions”. Their other two goals are improving health and creating opportunities.
Tesco has identified that food waste occurs mainly in agriculture and their supply chain, and from customers. Their plans to reduce food waste target both of these streams. For instance, Tesco no longer offers multi-buy promotions on their salads and sells them in re-sealable bags. The company is working with banana suppliers to make the fruit last longer during transportation and revamping their ordering process to avoid overstocking. Any food waste they do produce is converted into energy or donated to food distribution charities.
To compare, Sainsbury’s, the second largest grocer in the UK, achieved its goal of “zero waste to landfill” last year. The food waste they produced was processed for animal feed, converted into energy, or distributed to charities.
While reducing the amount of waste going into landfills is great, Sainsbury’s does not seem to have made an effort to reduce the amount of waste they are producing in the first place. It’s like recycling plastic water bottles vs. switching to reusable bottles. I feel like Sainsbury’s is only addressing one side of the food waste issue, diverting waste from the landfills, whereas Tesco has targeted both sides, reducing the amount of waste and diverting what’s left.
As the 3rd largest retailer in the world, I think Tesco has a responsibility to tackle problems like these. Hopefully, it will push other grocers to take notice as well. It seems grocers in the UK are already doing so. The four largest UK grocers, Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda, and Morrisons, plus Marks & Spencer, Waitrose, and the Co-op have agreed to release information on the amount of food waste they produce beginning in 2015.
It will be interesting to see what next steps these companies take, and if other grocers outside of the UK will follow suit, if they haven’t already.
Hi Wansum, do you really think that using left-over food for animal feed, converting it into energy, or distributing it to charities is “waste”? Just to play the devil’s advocate here, if Sainsbury’s followed Tesco and tried to eliminate all excess food from their supply chains, presumably the charities they support now would get less food from them, they wouldn’t be able to produce as much green energy from the left over food, etc. I think a big part of sustainability is ‘triple bottom line’ accounting, in which the environmental, economic, and social benefits/consequences are all considered. In that sense, Sainsbury’s excess food might actually have some important benefits for social and environmental sustainability. What do you think?
Utilizing excess food for animal feed, energy, or charity can offer significant social and environmental benefits. Adopting a ‘triple bottom line’ perspective acknowledges the positive impacts on sustainability, encompassing economic, environmental, and social considerations.
Using surplus food as animal feed, energy or for charitable purposes can offer ecological benefits. However, I am very critical of using food, even if it is surplus, for energy. It is better to produce sensibly.
Using surplus food for energy production should be the last option. I think we should think more about sensible food production and distribution.
The use of surplus food for energy production should be considered only as a last resort. In my opinion, we should prioritize more thoughtful approaches to food production and distribution to prevent waste in the first place. By focusing on efficient systems, we can better address both food security and environmental sustainability.