Page 8 - BPW-UK - E-news - Edition 116 - October 2023 - Binded

Making a meal of supermarket leftovers

Big national food retailers and local communities have developed and continue
to evolve a win-win strategy to deal with unsold food items.
Each one has a website full of initiatives to bring the elements of food supply and
demand into balance. Here are four which have a branch in my locality.

Morrisons
Work your way along their website headers to Sustainability and in the drop
down you can find their national policy statements on:

Purpose: here
Food waste: here
Morrisons acknowledge that their ‘business activities have an impact on the environ-
ment’ and set out their three targets:
• Taking care to forecast what we think we can sell in our stores to minimise sur-
plus food;
• Where it does arise, following a clear hierarchy for food surplus, which prioritises
redistribution to customers and communities, wherever possible
• Sending zero food waste to landfill

The Cooperative
The Coop has always been a leader in socially and environmentally friendly projects.
Think ‘fairtrade’. Their focus on local communities is equally robust. They state:

“When Co-op members buy selected Co-op branded products and services, they get
2p back for every pound spent and the same goes to local communities.
The funds raised by our members are split between supporting our:

• Local Community Fund, helping thousands of grassroots community causes
• Community Partnerships Fund, creating lasting change on big issues we care
about in local communities

On the website, their sustainability ambitions are found under ‘our mission’.
The national policy on food waste is a link, neatly tucked at the bottom of the
page here, just above ‘Jess Collins, Ethics, Sustainability & Policy Officer’.
Keep scrolling and discover how the Coop have teamed up with the FareShare
charity (think footballer Marcus Rashford) in a nationwide redistribution system of
surplus food.

Lidl