FareShare, the UK’s largest food redistribution charity, is launching a new scheme to recognise food businesses in the supply chain which consistently divert their edible surplus food to charities and community groups.
“We value each and every one of our food partners, but the Leading Food Partner badge recognises businesses who have achieved the gold standard when it comes to fighting food waste within their operations – those who are consistently getting surplus food to good causes,and taking steps to reduce their carbon footprint.”
Lindsay Boswell, CEO at FareShare
Over 100 companies will be awarded a Leading Food Partner badge, including Tesco and Cranswick.
Over the last year, the food industry has diverted 35,000 tonnes of in-date, nutritious food that would otherwise have been wasted, enough to create 84 million meals for vulnerable families – and avoid the needless wasting of 56,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases emitted in the production of this food.
Food waste accounts for 10% of the world’s CO2 emissions, and, in the UK alone an estimated 2m tonnes of edible food is wasted every year. Diverting unsold, edible food to charities avoids 17x more carbon emissions than the next most environmentally friendly method of disposal (sending it to animal feed).
FareShare CEO, Lindsay Boswell, said: “Food waste is an enormous contributor to climate change – and, quite frankly, this issue hasn’t been getting the attention it merits at COP.
“Hearteningly, the food industry has woken up to the problem of food waste. In the last 5 years we’ve quadrupled the amount of surplus food we redistribute, working with over 700 food businesses in the past year alone.
Companies are putting plans in place to measure and report on food waste within their operations, reduce avoidable waste, then divert in-date, edible food that can’t be sold to charities putting meals onto people’s plates.
Claire DeSilva, Head of Community and Media at Tesco said:
“We’re very proud of our longstanding partnership with FareShare, which enables us to divert surplus food that could otherwise have been wasted, daily from our stores, supporting thousands of charities in communities across the UK. It’s a privilege to be recognised by FareShare and we encourage colleagues across the food industry to leave no stone unturned in the battle against food waste.”
