Sainsbury's has pledged its support to an ambitious new Food Waste Reduction Roadmap developed by IGD and Wrap.
The Roadmap encompasses the entire supply chain from field to fork, and clearly shows the actions large businesses will take to address food waste both in their own operations, and by working to support their suppliers. It also sets out how these businesses can engage with consumers to help reduce their food waste.
By signing up to this new Food Waste Reduction roadmap, alongside fellow UK retailers, food producers, manufacturers, hospitality and food service companies, Sainsbury's can align with businesses across the UK to commit to ambitious targets and continue to cut food waste in its own operations as well as working with its suppliers and customers to enable them to reduce their own levels of food waste.
Tackling food waste has been a key area of focus for Sainsbury’s for a number of years and as a business, it is taking innovative steps across its entire chain. By working closely with farmers and growers,the group is able to ensure what they grow matches the quantities the customers will buy. Crucially, the chain also sources more directly from farmers, meaning it can get products into stores quicker, giving them a longer shelf life as a result.
The supermarket brand has also been looking into new ways of measurement and tracking and have now developed its technology systems to manage stock levels, enabling it to review data for unsold items in real time. By having this in depth insight into where food waste occurs it enables the firm to identify specific areas that it can address and improve quickly. As a result of this, in 2017/18 the food not consumed waste was 38,304 tonnes, a reduction of 80% year-on-year.
Judith Batchelar, Director of Sainsbury’s Brand, has been leading the charge on Sainsbury’s commitment to cut food waste. She commented, “We have been working hard to tackle food waste and continue to take significant steps forward in keeping it to an absolute minimum across our entire value chain.
'This Roadmap is an important implementation to ensure businesses across the UK act consistently, while continuing to make progress towards the global UN SDG Target 12.3.
'There are some ambitious milestones in here and we’re fully committed to working together with our suppliers and customers to continue to drive progress and ensure we hit our targets.”
Sainsbury's recognises that as an industry, it can work together and combine efforts towards a global fight against food waste. It has already signed up to the Cortauld 2025, a voluntary agreement to make food and drink production and consumption more sustainable.