// Tesco unveils accelerated plans to halve food waste in its own operations by 2025
// The supermarket will also be aligning executive pay performance targets to key sustainability measures, including reducing food waste
Tesco has unveiled its accelerated plans to halve food waste in its own operations by 2025, five years ahead of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (by 2030).
The supermarket has also become one of the first UK food retailers to align its executive pay performance targets to key sustainability measures, including reducing food waste.
This means that 25% of the Performance Share Plan awards Executive Directors receive will depend on Tesco’s progress on key sustainability measures including gender and ethnicity representation, carbon reduction and food waste reduction in its own operations.
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“In a year of unprecedent challenges for retailers, suppliers and customers, tackling food waste has never been more urgent, it not only contributes to climate change, but it also has an impact on our pockets,” said the UK’s biggest retailer.
The supermarket chain has already achieved a 45% reduction in food waste across its own operations against the 2016/17 baseline but it said it “knows there is still more to do despite just 0.35% of the food it handled, last year, ending up as waste.”
To meet its new accelerated target, the grocer has developed a plan that will see continued investment in its existing food surplus redistribution programmes, including partnerships with FareShare and OLIO, to ensure even more surplus food is diverted to people who need it most.
Tesco will see an expansion of its supplier partnership programme, to further help suppliers to reduce food waste in a variety of ways, including stocking ‘wonky’ fruit and veg, working with suppliers to manage bumper crops; and helping suppliers distribute surplus food to local communities.
The diversion of more surplus food (that cannot go to humans) to suppliers who can utilise it as animal feed.
Its plan will see the continued development of innovative new solutions, such as testing how food waste can be fed to Black Soldier Flies to create protein, which has the potential to be used as an alternative to soy animal feed.
Tesco Group chief executive Ken Murphy said: “While I’m proud of our progress in making sure good food doesn’t go to waste, we know there’s still more work to do. By accelerating our target to halve food waste in our operations by 2025 and aligning executive pay performance targets to this goal, we hope to drive further transformative change.
“However, the work we and our suppliers do won’t tackle the issue alone. We have long called for Government to introduce mandatory food waste reporting to help measure and judge if real action is happening. Action must be taken across the whole industry.”
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