A whopping 8.4 million people are currently experiencing food poverty in the UK, meaning they are unable to acquire a sufficient amount of food, for themselves or their family, in socially acceptable ways.

This idea alone is tragic, but it becomes even more heartbreaking when you realise that many of us are throwing away perfectly good food when others are in need.

Roughly 9.5 million tonnes of food are binned every year in the UK, as people mix up the sell by, best before, and use by dates on packaging, leave food to spoil, and chuck out unwanted leftovers.

Not only is food waste a major problem from a moral standpoint, it’s also a massive waste of money, as we all know the weekly food shop is far from cheap these days.

So to save money and help reduce the amount of food that’s needlessly thrown away, we all need to be doing our bit, from only buying what we need at the shops, planning meals and getting creative with leftovers, to sharing food with others and freezing anything that can be preserved before it expires.

We’re not the only ones guilty of wasting food, though. Shops and supermarkets also cause food waste by ordering too many products that don’t always end up getting sold.

As such, many of the top UK supermarkets are working to reduce the amount of surplus food that goes to waste, with several stores teaming up with Too Good To Go to allow customers to rescue products that are destined for the bin.

The food redistribution app allows businesses to sell ‘Surprise Bags’ of unsold food worth up to £10, which customers can claim for as little as £3. All you need to do to get your own is download the app and search for participating businesses in your local area.

Aldi currently offers Too Good To Go bags for £3.30. You can reserve these up to 24 hours in advance before collecting from 10pm the next day, and although the contents of the bag will vary each day, shoppers can get their hands on everything from fruit and vegetables, dairy products, meats, and other snacks.

Morrisons also sells Too Good To Go bags, which they call ‘Magic Bags’, from via its supermarkets and cafes. These cost £3.09 and contain ingredients to rustle up a ‘low-cost family feast’.

But what else are the top UK supermarkets doing to reduce food waste? 

Lidl

While Lidl might not be working with Too Good To Go, the retailer has launched its own Too Good To Waste boxes in store, which contain approximately 5kg of fruit and vegetables that are slightly damaged, discoloured, or deteriorated but still perfectly fine to eat.

At £1.50 each, the helped to prevent 8,200 tonnes of food from being wasted over the last year.

The bargain supermarket is also sending 10 million meals to those in need annually through organisations such as Neighbourly (which connects businesses with local causes), working closely with suppliers to tackle waste in the supply chain, and aiming to scrap unnecessary use-by dates from own-brand products such as yoghurt by the end of 2024.

Waitrose

Waitrose has a strict policy that none of its food goes to landfill, so any unsold food that is still safe to consume is either redistributed to those in need through the retailer’s charitable partners or FareShare, a UK charity fighting hunger and food waste. Alternatively, it’s used up in staff cafeterias across the business.

The supermarket also works with Olio, a redistribution app similar to Too Good To Go, where users can give away just about anything they no longer need, including food.

In addition to this, Waitrose has a Wonderfully Wonky range of fruit and vegetables which gives farmers extra support by ensuring that perfectly good products don’t go to waste because they look a little different to what people are used to. And in 2022, the retailer removed best before dates from 500 products in a bid to help tackle unnecessary food waste.

Marija Rompani, Director of Sustainability & Ethics, John Lewis Partnership, said at the time: ‘We want our customers to use their own judgement to decide whether a product is good to eat or not, which in turn, will increase its chances of being eaten and not becoming waste.

‘By using up existing fresh food in our homes, we can also save on our weekly household food shop, which is becoming an increasingly pressing concern for many.’

In the UK, best before dates are designed to showcase food quality for customers, rather than safety. Food is at its best before this date, however it should still be fine to eat afterwards – just check for signs of spoilage like mould. ‘Use by’ dates, however, are still be in place across products for safety, as eating food after this(unless it has been frozen on or before its use by date) could result in food poisoning.

Sainsbury’s 

Shoppers at Sainsbury’s are able to help fight food waste by purchasing £2 ‘Taste me, Don’t waste me’ boxes which contain a variety of surplus fruit and vegetables.

The boxes are available in over 230 Sainsbury’s locations, but the times the boxes are available and the number available varies between stores.

All other surplus food from the retailer is donated to local charities and community groups via Neighbourly.

In 2022, Sainsbury’s also removed best before dates entirely from over 1,500 products including fresh produce such as pineapples, pumpkins, pears and apples.

Marks & Spencer

There are a number of ways M&S is working to reduce food waste in its stores, including working with suppliers to help redistribute surplus food to the community.

The supermarket regularly tests out new ways to stock shelves in order to ensure just the right amount of food is put out and avoid too much waste, while staff get creative figuring out how to give new life to food nearing its end. For example, they turn any unsold baguettes and boules from the M&S bakery into frozen garlic bread at the end of each day, giving it an extended shelf life of 30 days.

Like other retailers, M&S also doesn’t want its surplus food to go to landfill, so it donates any edible food to the local community. Anything that isn’t safe to be eaten is sent to anaerobic digestion to be used to produce energy.

Bosses are also reviewing best before labels, pack portions and food promotions to help ensure that customers don’t buy more than they need to.

Tesco 

The retail giant claims that none of its food waste has gone to landfill in the UK and Ireland since 2009 – instead, Tesco staff work to reduce food surplus and waste where they can and ‘make the best possible use of it’ where they can’t. This is achieved using the industry’s WRAP hierarchy, which shows four stages of waste in order of importance. The most important stage is prevention of food waste, followed by redistributing surplus food, converting surplus food into animal feed, and turning waste into energy.

Tesco attempts to prevent waste by selling ‘wonky’ fruit and veg, taking bumper crops from growers, and helping suppliers redistribute surplus food to charity. Any good food left in its stores at the end of each day is given to local food banks, charities, and food redistribution groups such as Olio.

The retailer also has an online swap shop, called Tesco Exchange, which allows suppliers to sell or donate surplus products to other suppliers who can make use of them.

Asda

Asda has been working with FareShare since 2013 to donate surplus food from chilled depots. The retailer has since expanded the donation programme to also donate food from home offices, ambient depots, and all supermarkets.

Any bread that is too stale to donate is used for animal feed, while any inedible food is sent for anaerobic digestion.

Aldi

Alongside working with Too Good To Go, Aldi partners with Neighbourly to redistribute surplus fruit and vegetables, bakery, long-life products and flowers, as well as The Company Shop Group which helps save surplus food from suppliers.

Aldi previously removed best before dates from around 60 fresh fruit and vegetable lines, including apples and pears, citrus fruits, potatoes, carrots and onions, and the retailer runs a Love Food, Hate Waste campaign in stores.

In a bid to encourage customers to buy products nearing the end of their shelf life, Aldi introduced price reductions up to 75% on fresh produce, bakery and chilled products, and rolled out 30% price reductions on ambient items that have imperfect outer packaging.

The German supermarket chain has also revealed the next areas it plans to look into in a bid to reduce food waste, including trialling additional food surplus redistribution routes and identifying waste hotspots from ‘farm to fork’ in the supply chain.

Morrisons

As well as selling Magic Bags, Morrisons tries to reduce food waste by using up surplus food in its canteens, or donating it to local community groups and charities. The retailer currently works with over 400 organisations to help get food to those who need it most.

Anything leftover that is not safe to be eaten is used to produce energy, instead of going to landfill.

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