The Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP) has today (27 March) released the outcomes of two initiatives on food redistribution, in the aim of providing ‘invaluable’ insight to retailers on how to make more surplus food available for charities.

Surplus food arises for a number of reasons; including food being incorrectly labelled, over-ordered, and over-supplied or due to ‘obsolete seasonal stock’.

To help reduce waste, and boost support for food waste charities, WRAP set up a Food Redistribution Industry Working Group (IWG) to discuss the barriers to redistributing surpluses from across the supply chain, and commissioned a project to understand the type and amount of surplus food arising at back of retail store and how it could effectively be redistributed to local charities.

It also developed six trial partnerships between retailers and charities to identify barriers to redistribution and how they could be overcome.

Store-level surplus food trials

The details of the trial projects were published today in ‘The Food Connection Programme’ report, in what is being billed as the UK’s ‘first piece of quantitative research’ on store-level surplus food redistribution.

The trials, delivered in partnership with food redistribution and food waste charities, FareShare and FoodCycle, involved pairing retailers (including Tesco, Morrisons, Sainsbury’s, Asda and Waitrose) with the food waste charities tobuild data on current surplus food collection, and test processes that could lead to more surplus food being successfully redistributed directly to charity from retail ‘back of store’.

The research showed that whilst tonnages of surplus food available at store level are small in comparison to the whole supply chain - out of the 4.3 million tonnes of food and drink waste produced in UK retail and manufacturing, 5.5 were diverted for human consumption - the volumes are ‘sufficient’ to deliver benefit to those who need it.

The research also found that:

on average, around 25 kilogrammes of surplus food was collected at each weekly store visit during the validation exercise, rising to 35 kilogrammes over the trial – enough to create 83 meals;

· structured arrangements, for example standard days and processes agreed through a Service Level Agreement, are often more effective than ad-hoc, store level initiatives;

· third party support can be of considerable value to retailers and charities; and

· retailers are keen to redistribute surpluses for human consumption but internal processes can constrain what can be redistributed and when it can be made available for collection.

The Food Redistribution Industry Working Group

The data was then shared with the IWG (a mix of retailers, manufacturers, trade associations, redistribution organisations, logistics and industry bodies) to further discuss the barriers to surplus food redistribution across the supply chain and develop possible solutions towards improving it.

The barriers they identified were:

· balancing the needs of the charity and the needs of the business in terms of agreeing collection timings which could optimise redistribution;

· resourcesrequired for small charities to pick up food; and, to facilitate the retailer/charity interface, validate charities, broker relationships and oversee the process.

· processesin store that limit the range of food categories available for collection due to food safety concerns; and

· capacity in the third sector to provide a scalable solution for all participating stores across a retailer’s estate.

In response, the IWG has developed a set of guiding principles to overcome these barriers.

The recommendations include:

· undertaking a waste audit to understand what surpluses are regularly occurring and why;

· ensuring that surplus food is redirected to charities/food banks for human consumption in the first instance (rather than sending edible food for composting or energy recovery);

· identifying local charities or hubs that can take food surpluses and working closely with them;

· communicating with staff what should be done with surplus food; and

· celebrating the success of redistribution work within stores and the local community.

‘More collaboration needed between industry and food charities’

Speaking of the project, Andy Dawe, Head of Food & Drink at WRAP, said: “Both the Industry Working Group and the trials were intended to build on the current good practice and better understand the challenges, and possible solutions, to make redistribution a more viable option for all involved.

“By drawing on the experiences and expertise of both the voluntary and business sectors, we now have a better understanding of the surpluses available at store level and are closer to overcoming some of the barriers to redistribution, both at store level and across the supply chain.”

He added that although the working group has “laid the foundations which the whole sector can build upon”, in order to realise more “food waste prevention opportunities”, there needed to be “more collaboration within the industry, and with charities, to expand on this good work and make more of this valuable food available to those that need it”.

Lindsay Boswell, CEO of FareShare also commented, saying: “The results of the trial show that redistributing surplus food from supermarkets directly to charities not only provides them with food but also saves them money. At a time of such urgent need, this is incredibly important…

“The trial has also shown that to make this type of redistribution work, we need to invest a great deal of resources.”

She announced that the charity will look into which resources in particular would be needed to address this, but added that in order for surplus food to be adequately redistributed, the sector needs the “financial support of the food industry”.

As well as looking at reducing food waste through redistribution in retailers, WRAP is also leading the work to identify, implement and evaluate seven European feasibility studies that will look into how ‘social innovation’ can help tackle food waste.

Read more about WRAP.