Morrisons to redistribute unused food

Morrisons has become the latest supermarket to implement a scheme redistributing unsold food from stores to local community organisations.

At the end of each day, unsold food that is considered ‘safe to eat’ will be held back by the retailer’s 500 stores across the UK and given to groups registered as part of a network of community organisations.

The move follows a trial of over 100 stores in Yorkshire and the North East and will see the scheme extended to stores across the UK in early 2016.

Following the announcement of the scheme, Andrew Clappen, Group Corporate Services Director, said: “We don’t like the idea of good food going to waste and this programme will ensure that we find a home for the small amount of unsold… food in our stores.”

Mary McGrath, CEO of FoodCycle, one of the recipient organisations, added: “We have 10 hubs close to Morrisons stores and we will be taking food from those stores. This will allow us to feed more people who are at risk of loneliness, isolation and hunger and we would urge other organisations to take part.”

UK supermarkets taking action over unsold food

Tesco, Marks & Spencer and the Co-operative Food have all implemented or committed to implement similar schemes providing food to local groups, while Sainsbury’s has launched a five-year plan targeting household food waste.

Focus on waste created by unsold food has been heightened in recent weeks after a Food Waste (Reduction) Bill was given a second reading by Parliament in September.

The bill, presented in September by Kerry McCarthy, MP for Bristol East, seeks to oblige supermarkets to donate unsold food to charity, reduce food waste by 30 per cent by 2025 and publish all food waste arisings from throughout the supply chain.

It follows the same lines as a French campaign to ban the spoiling of edible food and require all supermarkets of greater than 400 square metres to enter into formal agreements with food redistribution charities. This was voted into an Energy Transition law in May, but was dropped at the last minute for ‘procedural reasons’. In response, supermarkets agreed in August to a voluntary commitment to redistribute their surplus food.

Food waste in supermarket supply chain under scrutiny

Figures released in January by the British Retail Consortium (BRC) suggest that supermarkets and depots produce just 1.3 per cent (200,000 tonnes) of food waste in the UK annually.

This week, ‘Hugh’s War on Waste’, a BBC documentary hosted by celebrity chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, highlighted the amount of waste created by cosmetic standards imposed by supermarkets that lead to farms throwing away tonnes of fruit and vegetables that don’t meet the strict criteria each week.

Food waste campaigner Tristram Stuart told the programme: “You’d have to be an expert or a machine to tell the difference between rejected parsnips and the parsnips that end up on supermarket shelves. Their policies are causing hidden mountains of food waste… across the country.

“To cause waste on this scale is criminal. It’s unspeakable, in fact.”

Read more about the global issue of food waste.