One in seven people go hungry in the UK, 2.7 million of them children and in community centres, schools and shelters across the country, the demand for meals is only increasing.
The food industry working together:
The food industry is joining forces to help tackle the issue, at scale, through a new campaign and a new coalition.
On May 19th, the Let’s make a meal of it campaign launches across four major supermarkets – one of the most ambitious retailer collaborations to date, to help fight hunger in the UK. It will also be supported by suppliers.
Despite the supermarket sector being highly competitive, 4 retailers will partner up to launch a single campaign. It will go live at Morrisons, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Waitrose for 7-14 days. The Let’s make a meal of it campaign will encourage millions of customers to donate online or to round-up at till in store.
Every £1 raised will provide five meals for people who need them. And all the money donated will go to FareShare – the UK’s leading food redistribution charity – which works with 8,000 frontline charities and community groups across the UK.
It will be spent on sourcing and redistributing meals from surplus food. Beneficiaries will include children who’ll receive a hot meal at youth clubs during the holidays and people experiencing loneliness and isolation who can meet others over a shared meal.
Customers can donate at the four retailers or online, here: FareShare
Identifying new sources of food for charities:
The customer-facing Let’s make a meal of it campaign will support the provision of meals for people who most need it, with the food industry also working together to identify and secure more sources of surplus food that can be rescued, as demand for meals rises.
As supermarkets become more efficient in tackling food waste, and despite the millions of meals they donate each year, charities need access to more food.
A pioneering, new coalition called Alliance Food Sourcing, led by IGD (the Institute of Grocery Distribution), FareShare, and The Felix Project, is bringing together supermarkets, suppliers, logistics providers and charities to help tackle this issue. It will focus on the 4.6 million tonnes of edible food that goes to waste across the food supply chain every year, before it even reaches people’s plates.
Alliance Food Sourcing was born out of the Coronation Food Project, inspired by King Charles, to bridge the gap between food waste and food need across the UK. The coalition is growing with 32 major UK food businesses already on board. Side by side, they’re working to make more of this supply chain surplus available for charities.
The work of Alliance Food Sourcing (AFS):
Currently, a lot of the surplus food in the supply chain is in large or unpackaged formats that are not immediately usable by community organisations. It requires industry investment to make it accessible.
So, the retailers and suppliers involved in AFS are creating new partnerships and processes to make food that would otherwise be wasted, rescuable. For example, by repackaging bulk quantities or bringing raw ingredients together to make meals.
By partnering up, vegetable misfits are put into curries and distributed. Sweet potato ‘rubble’ produced in the dicing process are being rescued for soups or stews. Where packaging is defective or products underweight, ingredients are salvaged to be re-used. And where pastry is visually defective on meat pies, they will be rescued as an extra source of protein. Surplus flour and sugar can be made up into biscuits and excess pasta sauce is diverted into 7kg bags for catering charities and community cafes.
Rescuing food and ingredients in the supply chain means there are also cost efficiencies, compared to donating finished food products from stores. During the changeover in factory production lines, instead of wasting unused orange juice when swapping from bottling orange to mango juice, the machines can create a bespoke vitamin-rich juice blend cheaply for charities while the two juices are switched. Pasta can also be rescued, as factories change from cutting one shape to another – 130 tonnes per year of surplus pasta has already been identified this way.
People going hungry in the UK will directly benefit from the Let’s make a meal of it campaign, which will provide five meals for every £1 raised. They will also benefit from the food industry’s investment in identifying and repurposing new sources of surplus food to ensure a steadier supply for charities.
Kristopher Gibbon-Walsh, CEO of FareShare, said: “Through Alliance Food Sourcing, FareShare and The Felix Project are transforming surplus food into meals—reducing waste, strengthening communities, and changing lives across the UK.”
Simon Roberts, CEO of Sainsbury’s and President of IGD, said: “At Sainsbury’s we believe everyone should have access to good food. This is a breakthrough for the UK food industry to be working together in this way to tackle food poverty and just shows what is possible in delivering real and positive change.”
Matthew Barnes, UK CEO of Tesco, said: “We are excited to support the Let’s make a meal of it campaign and strengthen our partnership with FareShare. Collaboration is key to addressing food insecurity, and we are happy to partner on this with the other retailers.”
Rami Baitiéh, CEO of Morrisons, said: “As a food retailer and manufacturer, we are committed to tackling food waste from field to fork. We want to help eradicate food poverty and are delighted to play our part in this industry initiative to redistribute surplus food to people in need.”
James Bailey, Managing Director of Waitrose & Partners, said: “We are proud to be part of Alliance Food Sourcing to reduce food waste while tackling food insecurity. Working with our suppliers, we’re helping to divert surplus from our supply chain that would otherwise be wasted, to get good, nutritious food to people in need.”
Sarah Bradbury, CEO of IGD, said: “It’s extraordinary to see what’s possible when the industry comes together. Thousands of tonnes of good, surplus food are already being rescued, providing meals for the most vulnerable in our society, whilst cutting waste in the food supply chain. We urge all members of the food industry to join Alliance Food Sourcing.”
