UK&I Country Director at Too Good To Go Sophie Trueman speaks to Circular Online about solutions to the food waste problem.
Why is the amount of food waste produced worldwide increasing (and what are the consequences of this)?
Food waste is a huge problem. According to WRAP, roughly 25-30% of global food produced is either lost or wasted – add to that the 8-10% of greenhouse gas emissions it creates – and you’ve got an environmental crisis of epic proportions.
In the UK alone, every year we throw away 10.7 million tonnes of food, worth £21.8 billion. Successive British governments have tried to push food waste up the national agenda but there is more to be done.
At Too Good To Go, our mission is to inspire and empower everyone to fight food waste so we can continue driving impact together.
Too Good To Go saves four meals per second, yet approximately 80,000 go to waste so we know there is a lot more room for impact.
The UNEP’s annual Food Waste Index found more than 60% of food waste came from the consumer level, how can we prevent food from being wasted in households?
At the household level, there are lots of ways to play your part in the fight against food waste.
Simple things like checking the temperature of your fridge and doing a stock-take of your cupboards every few weeks can have real, tangible effects.
Households also need help rewiring their thinking when it comes to the food they buy. We also know that 10% of all food waste in the EU is down to food label confusion.
A huge part of our mission at Too Good To Go is driving greater consumer awareness and ensuring we’re doing our bit to help tackle food waste at all possible stages.
Our Look, Smell, Taste labelling initiative – which we rolled out in partnership with some of the UK’s top FMCG brands, such as Danone, Onken, Kellogg’s and Tropicana – aims to get consumers to trust their own senses when judging whether food past its Best Before date is safe to eat.
This is just one way Too Good To Go is helping to change the way people can tackle food waste at home; we also share lots of general tips and tricks for reusing surplus foods on our social media channels too.
What more can industry and government do to prioritise the reduction of food waste?
Retailers are well-placed to help prioritise food waste, with the majority of businesses noting that it has become more of a priority over the past five years, according to a survey we commissioned recently called The Food Waste Gap Report.
We also know there is an opportunity for businesses to play a part in influencing consumer awareness around food waste, particularly date labelling, to help create even more impact.
When it comes to the government, Too Good To Go has been very vocal about the need for mandatory food waste reporting.
MPs also need to bring together policy, business and the public to enact a cohesive strategy that educates people about food waste, whilst empowering them to help tackle it.
Last year, Too Good To Go called on the Conservative-run UK Government to implement mandatory food waste reporting for businesses, why was this such an important policy?
The new Labour Government has set out a bold plan for a zero-waste economy by 2050, which is a great step in the right direction. However, mandatory food waste reporting is a key way businesses can tackle the issue.
It sounds obvious really, but without knowing how much food is being wasted it is impossible for companies to take it on.
The government has been discussing the issue, but the next step is concrete action. Together with the British Retail Consortium, we’ve managed to bring the issue back to the table by getting 30 businesses to write an open letter to Environment Secretary Steve Reed in September, with signatories, such as Tesco, Waitrose, Sainsbury’s, Aldi and Marks and Spencer.
Research shows that 99% of companies that have invested in tackling food waste saw a positive return on their investment as well, so it’s really a win-win for everyone involved.
How can we improve consumer awareness and behaviour change around reducing food waste?
By working together to effect change. A crucial part of our mission is to spread awareness of food waste and its link to climate change and provide solutions to help everyone make a difference.
As well as our Look Smell Taste date industry initiative, on our blog and social media we have zero-waste recipes and tips and tricks that are easy wins when it comes to using up everything in the fridge.
We also partnered with Aldi for a competition in September that saw customers who stocked up with the store’s hugely popular Surprise Bags getting the chance to win their groceries for a whole year.
It’s all about integrating food waste solutions seamlessly into our everyday routines.
What impact can Too Good To Go have on the problem through its food redistribution service?
At Too Good To Go, we work with more than 20,000 partners in the UK alone to fight against surplus food going to waste.
Together with these partners and our community of over 16 million registered users, we recently hit the milestone of 40 million Surprise Bags of food saved in the UK via our marketplace app.
Consumers are becoming more aware, and they like the tangible environmental impact that buying a Surprise Bag has.
On the industry side, we’ve recently extended our partnership with Morrisons to include its Morrisons Daily convenience stores, which means customers across 930 stores can reserve Surprise Bags, as well as announcing a brand-new partnership with ASDA.
We’ve made great progress, but with four meals going to waste each and every second globally, we know we can continue building even more impact.
When someone mentions Too Good To Go, they often think of the app, what other tangible solutions to food waste are you working on?
Our mission is to save as many meals as possible from going to waste across the supply chain.
To achieve this, we continually adapt our approaches to empower more people and businesses to fight food waste effectively.
Alongside consumer initiatives like our “Ask-a-Friend” feature, which makes it easier for consumers to collect their Surprise Bags, we launched the Too Good To Go Platform which allows retailers to efficiently track and redistribute surplus food.
We now offer five different modules that help our partners manage their surplus food from end-to-end: Expiry Date Management, Recommendations, Intelligent Discounting, Marketplace, and Donations.
Too Good To Go Platform places in-store operations at the centre, enabling easy customisation and leveraging technology and AI to bring efficiency to daily routines.
This is combined to provide a difference to both the business’ financial robustness and the amount of food waste generated.
Our newest feature is Too Good To Go Parcels. By purchasing surplus items directly from brands, Too Good To Go Parcels offers a reliable and sustainable retail channel that reduces the logistical burden of handling surplus food for manufacturers.
Consumers can then purchase carefully curated Parcels directly via the Too Good To Go app and have these delivered straight to their door for added convenience.
In cases where food waste reduction isn’t possible, what infrastructure is needed in the UK to tackle the food waste problem? (Do we have enough capacity to ensure food waste doesn’t find its way to landfill?)
Our main goal is to prevent and reduce food waste, which we enact directly with consumers and in stores.
We do recognise, however, that there are instances earlier on in the supply chain where changes also need to take place, such as agriculture, processing and distribution – and data and collaboration are needed to make informed decisions, particularly when resource is limited.
That’s why we developed our Too Good To Go platform, to optimise surplus food management across retailers.
We also developed our Parcels feature for this purpose. Parcels is a new retail channel that gives brands the opportunity to ship their products to Too Good To Go’s new packing facility in the Midlands, where our logistics partner CEVA Logistics will manage the distribution of surplus food parcels that consumers can order directly from the app and conveniently have them delivered straight to their door.
What more can be done further up the food chain before food makes it into the home to decrease food waste at a consumer level?
Helping consumers to make more informed choices is the ultimate goal, as industry will naturally evolve to reflect their demands.
When it comes to earlier in the supply chain, the potential in tech innovation to track and analyse waste data is so important to help make informed decisions.
Too Good To Go Platform leverages technology and AI to bring efficiency to daily routines, such as applying granular discount rates, and systematically improving revenue from close-to-expiry discounted products.
And as mentioned before, introducing mandatory food waste reporting would help to achieve this.
It all comes down to data in the end, and knowledge means power. Power to transform our industry and make a lasting difference for our planet.
