Good food is going to waste, claims Sainsbury

Thousands of tonnes of retail food waste, which could be redistributed, are unnecessarily going into landfill because the infrastructure is not there to distribute it, Sainsbury has claimed.

Sainsbury donates 6,600t of food to charity, but claims that this is nowhere near enough. “We’d like to do more, but that’s not happening because of the lack of infrastructure - we have food waste every day, but charities only collect it weekly,” said Sainsbury’s head of corporate responsibility Jat Sahota, who was speaking at a conference organised by the Resource Recovery Forum.

The Fareshare Community Food Network regularly redistributes surplus food for over 100 businesses including Nestlé, Sainsbury and Innocent Drinks and the charity claimed that it was more cost effective than waste disposal. But Tony Lowe, chief executive of Fareshare agreed that there was room for other social businesses. He claimed that 100,000t of food could be captured and redistributed from the retail sector alone, but admitted that his organisation could only redistribute 2,000t of food because of the complex way in which its warehouses operated.

Surplus food that would otherwise go to waste is taken from manufacturers and retailers to Fareshare’s six centres located across the UK. Local charities are contacted and offered a choice of the available stock, then their orders are made up, loaded into vans, and delivered daily.

A second route for the redistribution of surplus food and drink is to identify commercial sale opportunities. At the discretion of its clients, the charity’s sales arm Fareshare 1st can recommend options for the sale of surplus product. The proceeds of any product sold in this way can be used to further reduce the cost of the overall disposal or be donated to the Fareshare Community Food Network to aid its work with disadvantaged people across the UK.

Any remaining surplus is firstly redistributed for use via zoos and city farms. Following this, Fareshare sources the most environmentally sensitive disposal solution to divert food and drink from landfill wherever possible.