Echoing food retailer Pret, Tesco has launched a new scheme to redistribute excess food from its stores.
Tesco is partnering with UK food redistribution charity FareShare and Irish social enterprise FoodCloud to trial a FareShare FoodCloud app in the UK which store managers will use to alert charities to the amount of surplus food they have at the end of each day.
The charities will then confirm they want the food, pick it up free of charge from the store and turn it into meals for those in need.
The scheme is already in place at Tesco stores in Ireland, and will now be piloted in ten Tesco stores around the UK.
New figures recently published reveal 55,400 tonnes of food was thrown away at Tesco stores and distribution centres in the UK over the past year, of which around 30,000 tonnes could otherwise have been eaten.
Dave Lewis, Tesco CEO said:
“No one wants to throw away food which could otherwise be eaten. We don‘t throw away much food in our own operations but even the 1% we do throw away amounts to 55,400 tonnes,” said Tesco boss Dave Lewis.
Commenting on the move he said:
“This is potentially the biggest single step we‘ve taken to cut food waste, and we hope it marks the start of eliminating the need to throw away edible food in our stores.”
