🔎 What’s going on?
UK Frozen food retailer, Iceland cuts food waste with its own operations by 23%, over the last two years.
🍎 What does this mean?
Earlier this week, Iceland published it’s first food waste report, following calls by Tesco and WRAP, the food waste agency in the UK last year.
Out of the 1.3 million tonnes of food it sold last year, 0% of food was sent to landfill - which is great, as it doesn’t contribute to climate change by giving out harmful gases such as methane (a greenhouse gas). Instead, any surplus food has been donated to food banks or local communities or given to store staff. As a last resort, any remaining food is converted into animal feed or energy through a process called anaerobic digestion - last year, 0.57% (7,952 tonnes) was sent to anaerobic digestion. Whilst, 150 tonnes of surplus food was donated. They partnered with companies like SugaRich and Tiny Rebel Brewery Co to convert surplus food into animal feed or Pale Ale.
It should be noted that this reported figure does not cover Iceland’s suppliers, manufacturing or their head office. When they say “own operations” they mean all of Iceland’s stores and The Food Warehouse stores and depots. It’s a good start for the first year of reporting.
❓Why should I care?
Believe it or not but food waste contributes to climate change. Big time. Roughly 8% of global carbon emissions come from the food we waste. In fact, roughly a third of food that’s grown or prepared does not make it to the plate. This means that all the resources used to grow food - seeds, water, energy, land, fertiliser, labour and financial capital are ALL wasted and they generate carbon emissions.
According to Project Drawdown (a list of Top 100 solutions to tackling climate change), reducing food waste is one of the top 5 most effective solutions to reducing carbon emissions.
🚦 Where do we need to be?
One of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals is to halve food waste by 2030 - which should be adopted by all retailers, globally.
“12.3 By 2030, halve per capita global food waste at the retail and consumer levels and reduce food losses along production and supply chains, including post-harvest losses”
Entrepreneurs should continue turning food waste into new products that can be consumed. For example, Toast Ale (pale ale made from surplus bread), Rubies in the Rubble (spicy tomato relish made from surplus tomatoes), Fopo (surplus fruit and vegetables are freeze-dried into nutritional powder), White Moustache (yoghurt made from surplus whey and fruit), Sir Kensington’s (vegan mayo made from wasted chickpea water, aquafaba).
👤 What can I do about it?
A lot. To start with, you can buy wonky supermarket food and buy reduced supermarket food (with the half-price yellow labels) and in general buying frozen food reduces waste in your freezers.
Then, support businesses that turn food waste into new products, for example:
- Toast Ale (Pale Ale made with bread)
- Rubies in the Rubble (condiments made from wasted fruit and veg)
- Get Wonky (natural juice made with ugly or wonky fruit and veg)
- Snact (snacks made with ugly fruits)
- Em and Nick’s (upcycled ground coffee)
- ChicP (dips made from surplus veg)
- Spare Fruit (crisps made from surplus fruit)
- Rejuice (fresh juice made from surplus fruit and veg)