Tesco to commit to food waste donation scheme

UK supermarket giant Tesco has announced that it will commit to a scheme to donate all of their unsold food waste to local charities. Tesco has teamed up with the food distribution charity FareShare to deliver unsold food which is approaching its best-before date to charity groups across the UK.

Tesco began trialling the scheme last year in 10 stores across the UK but have now committed to a nationwide rollout of the scheme which is said to have generated 50,000 meals over the last month with food that would previously have been sent to animal feed and energy plants.

The move comes after increasing pressure on supermarket chains to tackle food waste, a trend popularised by government legislation in France which forced French supermarket chains to give away their food waste to charities.

FareShare will take surplus food from Tesco stores to their 20 regional centres across the UK where it is then divided up between over 2,000 charities including breakfast clubs, homeless hostels and women’s refuges.

We take recycling seriously at LSPS and help individuals across Leicestershire to reduce the amount of waste that ends up at landfill sites. For more information or to find out how we can help with your waste disposal efforts, please visit our website or call us on freephone 0800 083 7807.