Food Connection Programme

Transcription

1 Food Connection Programme Opportunities to divert surplus food from back of retail store to charities for human consumption Surplus food redistribution trial Distributing back of store surplus food from retailers to charities has been identified as a way of reducing food waste and achieving social benefits. A trial was set up with two redistribution charities FareShare and FoodCycle and several retailers to understand the barriers to redistributing surpluses, work to find practical solutions and capture good practice. Key findings from the trial On average, around 35kg of surplus food were collected on each store visit enough for approximately 86 meals. Bakery and produce were the highest categories of surplus food. Charities save money by substituting food they would have needed to buy and can provide healthier and more varied meals. Surplus food redistribution contributes to retailers corporate social responsibility actions and helps enhance local community engagement. Support from third party redistribution organisations can be of considerable value to retailers and charities in ensuring food safety and brand integrity. Collected surplus food ready for meal preparation Company Shop Kellogg s Tesco 1 Tesco 2 page 1

2 Company Shop launches Community Shop to match food surpluses with those people who need them most Company Shop has always delivered significant environmental and social benefits; redistributing wholesome, surplus food to workers from the industry supply chain. During 2013, they decided they wanted to do more and started to see if they could match the food surpluses generated within the UK Grocery Supply Chain with people who need that food the most. To achieve this, Company Shop created a new division within its business, Community Shop, to bring stores from behind factory gates into areas of complex deprivation. Community Shop now exists as a subsidiary of Company Shop. Opening the UK s first social supermarket Launched in December 2013, the pilot store in Goldthorpe, Yorkshire is the UK s first social supermarket and provides shoppers on the cusp of food poverty access to surplus food and products at up to 70% less than normal prices. Open to individuals in receipt of Council Tax relief and living in a specific postcode area, Community Shop provides those who are struggling, but want to do better, with access to low-cost food and support to help them address the issues pushing them towards food poverty. Barriers and solutions Company Shop has a history of finding bespoke solutions to unique challenges presented in the food sector. The key barrier in the establishment of Community Shop was, naturally, ensuring that retailers and brands were reassured that by selling surplus own label products on the high street their carefully crafted brands would not be damaged. The solution to this was to implement a tightly controlled membership policy for Community Shop stores and ensuring all shoppers were educated about surpluses, and how they come about, before they started to shop there. page 2

3 Benefits delivered The launch of the pilot store was a huge success and was supported by major retailers, brands and manufacturers including ASDA, Morrisons, The Co-operative Food, M&S, Tesco, Mondelēz, Ocado, Tetley, Young s, Muller and more. In diverting surpluses to the pilot, partners of Community Shop are able to demonstrate responsible redistribution of surpluses, resulting in significant social and environmental impact. The pilot store, which has a limited number of members, has redistributed around 400 tonnes to date, a number that will increase significantly as other Community Shop stores open across the country. In time Company Shop aspires to manage 20 stores nationally - delivering over 20 million meals and supporting over 10,000 members. The Co-operative Food is currently working with Company Shop to redistribute surplus food from our suppliers. This approach is complementary to our ongoing work to redistribute surplus food, such as oversupplies and products with damaged but intact packaging, from our distribution depots to charities across the UK through FareShare, and is over and above our waste backhauling project which diverts all waste from landfill. Steve Murrells, Chief Executive, The Co-operative Group page 3

4 Providing practical solutions By relabeling 6,000 boxes of Nutrigrain Elevenses, Kellogg s were able to donate 34,632 bars to families in need. Prioritising surplus food redistribution Kellogg s new guidelines have outlined solutions to each of these issues: where a food is made in one country for example the UK for consumption in another country for example France the new guidelines allow Kellogg s to work with food bank partners to label the French product with the ingredients and allergens information in English so that the food can be distributed in the UK without putting consumers at risk. Kellogg s has a long history of investing in local communities. Its new global social responsibility strategy Breakfasts for Better Days focusses on hunger relief, particularly breakfast. Kellogg s is aiming to provide 15 million servings of cereal and snacks to UK children and families in need by the end of 2016 and will do this through partnerships with food banks such as FareShare, the Trussell Trust and His Church as well as local school breakfast clubs. In line with its global policy on maximising food donations, Kellogg s recently produced a new set of guidelines to ensure as much surplus food as possible is redistributed to community partners. The kinds of food that can now be donated include products in damaged packaging, shortdated food, under or over weighted food, food intended for distribution in another country, residual stock and incorrectly labelled food. page 4

5 Taking action The Kellogg s factory in Wrexham recently used the new guidelines when they discovered 6000 boxes of Nutrigrain Elevenses that had been incorrectly labelled. The food posed no risk to health so the team decided to relabel the food so it could be donated to a local food bank. Employees were asked to volunteer over their lunch breaks for two weeks and they set up a human production line at the back of the warehouse. Labels were printed and stuck on each box of six bars before being repacked into cases and resealed. Through this initiative Kellogg s were able to donate 34,632 bars to families in need. Making a difference The new guidelines have already made a significant impact to Kellogg s hunger relief programme in the UK. In 2013 the company provided 4.7million portions of breakfast cereal and snacks to children and families in need which is double the amount of the food donated in With demand for our services rising at an alarming rate, the increased support from Kellogg s has come at a crucial time and enabled us to provide the hundreds of charities we support, including breakfast and after school clubs for vulnerable children, with even more good quality food. Lindsay Boswell, CEO of FareShare page 5

6 Tesco daily collections Case study 1. Tesco partnered with the first UK Emmaus site in Bristol, which houses a community of around 25 men with daily food provision. Tesco asked for daily collections as this can help staff to effectively initiate changes in procedures if they are implementing them every day. Although a late evening collection time was not easy for Emmaus to arrange on a daily basis, by drawing on their pool of volunteers this was successfully achieved. Avoiding the collection of unusable surpluses Charity volunteers can sometimes find it difficult to refuse surplus food offered to them, even if the charity cannot make effective use of it. Initially this was a problem for the Emmaus trial and as a result, some of the collected food was being wasted. To overcome this Emmaus provided Tesco with a shopping list stating maximum amounts of each type of food that could be taken. This meant volunteer collection drivers were not faced with difficult decisions, and less collected food was wasted. In order to make the collections easier for charities, in future Tesco will focus on donations of produce and bakery items that can be picked up the following day. This should make the process much easier for charities. Emmaus has good storage facilities and provides meals every day so can take higher volumes of surplus food Key outcomes Successful match between charity need for daily meals and the store requirement for daily collection. Dialogue prevented inefficient collections. Focus on bakery and produce to ensure easier collection times. Need to work with the charities available capacity to receive food. page 6

7 Uncovering the opportunity Case study 2. Tesco diverts surpluses in Dotcom stores and Fresh Food Distribution Centres to FareShare delivering enough food for over 700,000 meals As part of the commitment to lead on food waste globally and recognizing the opportunity to Use its Scale for Good in contributing to the alleviation of poverty in the UK, Tesco strengthened its partnership with FareShare to ensure surplus food within its supply chain is used to feed people. Tesco looked at its own operations to understand where there is surplus food that can be redistributed to help feed people in need. Dotcom only stores and Fresh Food DCs were identified as two areas where there was a big opportunity to donate more surplus food to charity Within Dotcom only stores (dark stores) food cannot be reduced to clear which means that there is more surplus food. This surplus is identified daily and split between a staff shop and FareShare. Tesco dotcom vans from all 6 centres in and around the M25 deliver food out to FareShare s Deptford and Brighton depots daily. Critical to the success was making sure the process was embedded in the day-to-day operation of the centre, and that transport of product to the FareShare depots is planned well in advance. This program has generated in excess of 300 tonnes since the program began - enough food for over meals. Food poverty is a significant problem in the UK and we want to use our scale to make a difference. We have built on our relationship with FareShare ensuring that all our fresh food surplus from distribution centres and online grocery stores goes to feeding people in need. These will provide seven million meals a year for people in the UK. Greg Sage, Community Director, Tesco page 7

8 Changing operational processes Building on the lessons and success from the Tesco.com project, Tesco identified the opportunity to divert surplus food from within their Chilled Distribution to support FareShare. This required some subtle changes to the operational processes within depots to ensure any surplus food is identified. This included excess stock and quality rejections (still fit for consumption). Critical to success of this project was alignment with suppliers that food could be provided to FareShare so this was communicated in advance to all suppliers. To transport the stock to FareShare depots, Tesco transport forecast the anticipated potential surplus and allocated space on pre-planned deliveries to Tesco stores, helping to ensure food is delivered to FareShare in a timely manner. Delivering social benefit Within a full year it is expected that both of these projects will provide enough food for 7 million meals. For the first time ever we are supporting more than 1,200 frontline charities across the country. At a time of such urgent need, our partnership with Tesco enables us to provide even more high quality, nutritious food to some of the most vulnerable people in society. It also means the charities we support save millions of pounds on their food bill, which they can invest into providing additional support services for their beneficiaries, helping to get people back on their feet. Lindsay Boswell, CEO, FareShare page 8

9 This suite of case studies is part of a series of WRAP tools on Waste Prevention. For more information, visit You can access: information on waste prevention; a range of case studies; and tools and guidance. While steps have been taken to ensure its accuracy, WRAP cannot accept responsibility or be held liable to any person for any loss or damage arising out of or in connection with this information being inaccurate, incomplete or misleading. This material is copyrighted. It may be reproduced free of charge subject to the material being accurate and not used in a misleading context. The source of the material must be identified and the copyright status acknowledged. This material must not be used to endorse or used to suggest WRAP s endorsement of a commercial product or service. For more detail, please refer to our Terms & Conditions on our website - Waste & Resources Action Programme The Old Academy 21 Horse Fair Banbury, Oxon OX16 OAH Tel: Fax: info@wrap.org.uk Helpline free phone