Missed opportunities in food waste

Figures from environmental NGO, WRAP, states that UK food waste from all sectors stands at an approximate 10.7m tonnes, with around 70% intended to be consumed and 30% making up ‘inedible’ parts. This waste equates to about £22m a year.

For the food that could have been eaten (6.4m tonnes), more than 15bn meals could have been made – enough to feed the entire UK population three meals a day for 11 weeks.  

While it’s true that most waste occurs within the household and our industry has done an incredible job in limited or redirecting waste through science and technology, there is still significant room for improvement.

Sustainability on pause

The British Standards Institution’s (BSI) 2024 Net Zero Barometer, a report that tracks the behaviours and attitudes of UK businesses on their journey to net zero, has revealed that even though the majority of UK businesses surveyed (83%) are committed to achieving the UK’s legally binding net zero emissions target (by 2050), 28% say their organisation will be taking no action in the next 12 months.

In light of the recent Climate Change Committee’s report, which revealed the UK is not on track to hit its emissions targets​​, this paints a worrying picture.

“The way that we're [businesses] going about food waste is just not changing the dial,”​ Todd Redwood, BSI’s global managing director for consumer, retail and food, said in an interview with Food Manufacture.

Cost continues to be a major challenge for everyone, with 57% of food providers citing this as a barrier, according to BSI figures. This is a particular hinderance for smaller businesses, which make up most of the UK’s food and drink system.

As Food Manufacture has previously reported, for SMEs the focus is on survival.​​ Even with the most efficient team, keeping pace with a larger company is seemingly impossible.  

However, there is a compelling argument for all companies, no matter their size, to focus on sustainability, with research showing huge savings can be made by investing into food waste reduction.

“Sustainability has a cost but the beauty about food loss and waste is that when you reduce it, you can actually save money,” ​Redwood explained. “There is a World Resources Institute study that found that for every dollar invested into this, $14 is saved in operating costs.” ​

That 14-fold return can then either be saved or reinvested into other sustainability initiatives.

For companies of any size, but particularly smaller businesses, Redwood said the issue is that sometimes they don’t recognise they have a food waste problem.

“They don’t realise how big their food waste problem is or how much it’s costing them in annual losses,” ​he added.

Green finance

But keeping your finger on the pulse here may soon become an imperative, with Redwood predicting that more lenders will be looking at ‘green-focused’ loans. 

Certain banks are beginning to roll-out green finance options, for example in 2021, HSBC announced the launch of a £500m Green SME fund to help support businesses to transition to a low carbon economy. Meanwhile, Lloyds Bank has committed £30bn’s worth to its commercial banking customers for sustainable projects between 2024 and 2026. This in addition to the £29bn is has already provided since 2022.

For large, listed companies, ESG – which encompasses sustainability – has been a consideration for banks for a few years. But research from global accountancy firm, Grant Thorton LLP, shows that we may see this permeate into the mid-market too.

According to its findings, as many as 93% of lenders said they expect ESG-related lending to the mid-market to increase in the next few years, and 85% report that a firm’s ESG status or ability to transition to net zero already influences their credit risk assessment.  

Redwood agreed, adding that as more regulations like EUDR emerge, lenders will become ever-more aware of a business’s environmental responsibilities.

“They just aren’t willing to finance practices that are irresponsible,” ​he highlighted.

For smaller companies, he said the key is to start off small and identify where they can make the most impact: “You don’t necessarily have to do everything at once. Focus on one thing that will make a big difference and that might give you the ability to reinvest some of those savings into further initiatives.”​

He gave an example of one manufacturer he visited recently, which was already working to a very lean process, with just 0.9% food loss. “They have got this down to 0.4% and they’re making money on that other half by selling that ‘waste’ to the pet food market.”​

Looking at larger manufacturers, which may not be so vast in number but certainly in footprint, Redwood said more could definitely be done.  

He referenced this year’s Consumer Goods Forum Global Summit in Chicago, wherein guest speaker Michelle Obama criticised the sector over its ‘lack of commitment’ to children’s health. Redwood compared this conversation to planetary health, stating that companies must be encouraged to prioritise both people and planet alongside profit.

“They do have the ability,”​ Redwood said when questioned on whether big manufacturers could do more. “It's a matter of how they respond to their shareholder pressures, [and] how responsible their shareholders are.”​

Can high-speed automation increase waste?

But there are also inefficiencies occurring in factories as they move towards what, at first glance, seems to be a more efficient process.

Speaking with Redwood on this, he referenced calibration issues, such as labelling alignment, as one example of how food can be wasted. For example, when the technology identifies something out of line, it can sometimes simply 'shoot' high volumes of product off into a waste bin to reduce stoppage time – this includes raw material and packaged too. 

“Sometimes the wastage can be horrendous, so tightening up on this area is important,” ​he stressed.

“I was in a factory in the UK; there were two lines running in parallel with each other. One was robotic, fast speed, and the other one was human. They were making exactly the same product. [But] the amount of waste that was coming out of the robotic line was insane.”​

Whilst he admitted the robot was much quicker and the speed of output could probably balance out the waste financially (and omit the need for five or more humans), it’s not ideal from an emissions or waste perspective.

“You have to weigh up both sides of that argument. But from a purely food waste point of view the humans were doing much better than the robots were.”​

Eliminate waste don’t move it around

Offering another anecdote, Redwood recalled a visit he made to a biscuit manufacturer which was very proud it had managed to reduce its food waste down to 4%.

“Ok, I said, that’s good…but what are these bins here? And they said, that goes off to the pigs. I asked them, do you think you could reduce your food loss any further? They said, it’s not my department. ​

“Part of it comes from complacency. There's a lot of food waste which is just built into the culture of the organisation. ​

“We need to have a connected understanding. It’s really education across the board – it shouldn’t just be a couple of individuals in the organisation who are responsible.”​

And while sending waste off as feed is better than shipping it to landfill, it’s still not ideal.

“Pigs are an effective waste disposal mechanism, but it’s not ideal food for the pigs and it goes back into our food cycle too. It also creates emissions. It’s better to eliminate the waste rather than put it elsewhere.”​

Redwood referenced the globally recognised Food Recovery Hierarchy to further back up his argument. 

This prioritises actions organisations can take to prevent and divert wasted food, with each tier highlighting a different strategy. The top levels create the most benefits for the environment, society and the economy.

From top (most preferred) to bottom (least preferred) they read:

• Source reduction – reduce the volume of surplus food generated
• Feed hungry people by donating food
• Feed animals by donating scraps
• Industrial uses (e.g. digestion to recover energy)
• Compost
• Landfill/incineration

In the UK, WRAP estimates that 2.8m tonnes of food surplus from farms, manufacturing, retail and hospitality and food service is either being redistributed via charitable and commercial routes or diverted to produce animal feed. 

Identifying food waste hotspots

Speaking with Bidfood, which has recently been banging hard on the sustainability drum​​, its director of supply chain, Louise Lyle, said the business has a number of mechanisms in place to reduce its food waste.

“As signatories of WRAP’s Food Waste Reduction Roadmap, our target is to reduce food waste by 63% between 2020 and 2030​.”​

Lyle explained that waste can be driven by a number of things, citing large ranges, sale fluctuations, and even damaged goods. 

“Packaging has become weaker on a number of products and if your internal route to market involves a lot of handling and movement, packaging may get crushed, rip or break,”​ she noted.

To help identify its hotspots, the company reports its stock loss through its B.I tool. This platform looks at its current waste trends allowing the business to see what is happening, where and why.

“Using these reports, we look to put the right steps in place to reduce waste wherever possible such as training our warehouse pickers and loaders to correctly handle products without causing damage. As well as this, we issue daily reports to our depots and supply chain teams to keep them informed of what’s still in stock and needs to be moved.”​

She added: “We always review the size of our range and slow sellers to cut down on waste, as well as prioritise the promotion of short life products.​

“This year, we introduced a new demand planning tool called Slim4 to aid forecasting, which is especially beneficial for seasonal products like our Christmas range, for example, which fluctuate during the year. Slim4 will measure the risk of whether a product will go to waste and cut the amount we bring to stock.​

“We’re also undergoing a project to tackle damages to products with the aim to review packaging with our suppliers, our routes to market and how we store and handle products.”​

For companies – both large and small, Redwood said BSI is putting together its own assessment tool to help identify food wastage. This can be conducted either with the help of a consultant or done as a self-assessment.

We can also expect, Redwood is anticipating spring 2026, the ISO standards on food loss and waste management to come in – of which BSI is a participating National Standards Body.

While not a legal requirement, this will help provide further guidance and a framework for any food organisation to systematically reduce, redirect or repurpose food loss and waste within their business and across their supply chains,  and hopefully move that dial a little farther.

If you are interested in reading more about waste - why not read our exclusive feature on plastic packaging and labelling, as Food Manufacture dives into the environmental arguments fuelling alternatives. ​​