Supermarkets came under fire this week for not doing enough to cut down on waste. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Last Monday, the Cabinet Office published its Food Strategy Report, which highlighted the cost of food waste to British consumers: every year we throw away 4.1 million tonnes of food that could have been eaten, costing each household an average of £420.
Evidently, this is not good news for our wallets. Moreover, decomposing food in landfill sites has serious consequences for global warming. At Tesco, we have been working hard to help our customers to cut down on what they throw away, so it is frustrating to hear critics suggest this week that retailers are to blame for the problem and that government ought to be tougher with us. It is hard to see how government intervention might help. This is not a situation that calls for regulation - it is one that demands innovation.
Some people have queried whether promotions such as buy-one-get-one-free encourage people to buy more than they need. Our customers, including students and the elderly, tell us that they use these offers to save money and often share any perishable surplus with friends and family.
It is important to remember how much our customers appreciate being offered a range of price incentives - particularly low-income households and the elderly. At Tesco, we take a common sense approach to choosing the right promotional tool. On products where food waste can be a particular problem - such as produce - we have introduced more long-term price cuts, such as our Fruit and Veg Pledge: at any time you will find five different fruit and vegetable products in our stores being offered at half price.
Good packaging is the key to cutting down on food waste by getting products into customers’ homes in mint condition and then helping to keep them that way for as long as possible. We should not underestimate how much poor packaging leads to food - fruit in particular - being crushed and hence wasted. We are working with our suppliers to increase the use of technologies that extend a product’s shelf life, such as modified atmosphere packaging or bioplastic film. Some ideas are simple, such as re-sealable packaging on cheese or salads to help maintain freshness once a product has been opened.
Offering the right portion size can have a big impact too. A popular example is our 400g loaf of bread which is perfect for small or single person households who cannot use a whole 800g loaf in time.
Similarly, education can play an important role, whether that means improving labelling so that customers can better understand a product’s shelf life, or offering tips online. For example, we recently launched a campaign on Tesco.com to show people which products to keep in the fridge.
Critics are quite wrong when they accuse supermarkets of throwing away large quantities of edible food because of poor stock management. What efficient business could run like that? We measure and monitor our performance daily to fine tune the balance between availability and waste.
Rather than getting in the way of the good work being done by retailers, government’s energies are best spent informing people, as they have done brilliantly through WRAP’s Love Food Hate Waste campaign.
However the economy develops, cutting down on food waste will be an increasingly important concern for many of our customers. And, as ever, we will be there to help.
Lucy Neville-Rolfe is corporate and legal affairs director at Tesco
Last Monday, the Cabinet Office published its Food Strategy Report, which highlighted the cost of food waste to British consumers: every year we throw away 4.1 million tonnes of food that could have been eaten, costing each household an average of £420.
Evidently, this is not good news for our wallets. Moreover, decomposing food in landfill sites has serious consequences for global warming. At Tesco, we have been working hard to help our customers to cut down on what they throw away, so it is frustrating to hear critics suggest this week that retailers are to blame for the problem and that government ought to be tougher with us. It is hard to see how government intervention might help. This is not a situation that calls for regulation - it is one that demands innovation.
Some people have queried whether promotions such as buy-one-get-one-free encourage people to buy more than they need. Our customers, including students and the elderly, tell us that they use these offers to save money and often share any perishable surplus with friends and family.
It is important to remember how much our customers appreciate being offered a range of price incentives - particularly low-income households and the elderly. At Tesco, we take a common sense approach to choosing the right promotional tool. On products where food waste can be a particular problem - such as produce - we have introduced more long-term price cuts, such as our Fruit and Veg Pledge: at any time you will find five different fruit and vegetable products in our stores being offered at half price.
Good packaging is the key to cutting down on food waste by getting products into customers’ homes in mint condition and then helping to keep them that way for as long as possible. We should not underestimate how much poor packaging leads to food - fruit in particular - being crushed and hence wasted. We are working with our suppliers to increase the use of technologies that extend a product’s shelf life, such as modified atmosphere packaging or bioplastic film. Some ideas are simple, such as re-sealable packaging on cheese or salads to help maintain freshness once a product has been opened.
Offering the right portion size can have a big impact too. A popular example is our 400g loaf of bread which is perfect for small or single person households who cannot use a whole 800g loaf in time.
Similarly, education can play an important role, whether that means improving labelling so that customers can better understand a product’s shelf life, or offering tips online. For example, we recently launched a campaign on Tesco.com to show people which products to keep in the fridge.
Critics are quite wrong when they accuse supermarkets of throwing away large quantities of edible food because of poor stock management. What efficient business could run like that? We measure and monitor our performance daily to fine tune the balance between availability and waste.
Rather than getting in the way of the good work being done by retailers, government’s energies are best spent informing people, as they have done brilliantly through WRAP’s Love Food Hate Waste campaign.
However the economy develops, cutting down on food waste will be an increasingly important concern for many of our customers. And, as ever, we will be there to help.
Lucy Neville-Rolfe is corporate and legal affairs director at Tesco
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