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Tesco Pilots a New App to Donate Food

Posted on: 08/06/2015

For those of you who might not be in the loop with the latest news, France has introduced legislation that all their supermarkets must donate their unsold food to charities. There is hope for us in the UK though as Tesco is piloting an app which is aimed to cut food waste in its stores and donate its excess food to charities. The scheme, which is looking to reduce up to 30,000 tonnes of edible food thrown away at Tesco stores and distribution centres last year, is already in place at Tesco stores in Ireland and will now be piloted in ten stores across the UK. Tesco have found in their recent figures for 2014/15 that 55,400 tonnes of food was thrown away at Tesco stores and distribution centres in the UK, where 30,000 tonnes could have been eaten. Dave Lewis, Tesco's chief executive, said: "No one wants to throw away food which could otherwise be eaten. We don't throw away much food in our own operations but even the 1% we do throw away amounts to 55,400 tonnes." He added: "This is potentially the biggest single step we've taken to cut food waste, and we hope it marks the start of eliminating the need to throw away edible food in our stores." FoodCloud FareShare FoodCloud is the latest innovation in FareShare's three-year contract with Tesco. Part of the contract is to get hold of unwanted and excess food from various sources, which so far has helped serve 4.5 million meals. If the scheme is a hit, it will then be rolled out across the entire country, helping even more people. Lindsay Boswell, FareShare chief executive, said: "FareShare already has a long standing partnership with Tesco and the development of the FareShare FoodCloud is a natural evolution of this. "We understand that customers get angry when they see food being wasted in their local store. We do too and that is why we have spent 20 years developing our successful charity redistribution model. Our partnership with Tesco means we are already able to access surplus food from their supply chain, distribution centres and dotcoms." WRAP Richard Swannell, WRAP's director of sustainable food systems, recently stated: "having a system that allows charities to identify what surplus food is available in their local area is a great way to ensure food that cannot be sold reaches those most in need." Last year Tesco became the first major UK retailer to publish its food waste figures, which showed that 56,580 tonnes of food was wasted in its stores and distribution centres in the UK in 2013/14. It was also the first ever UK supermarket chain to abolish 'buy one get one free' offers on fruit and vegetables in the UK to reduce food waste. FoodCloud Logo