Food Waste Action Week
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Published 7 Mar 2022 in Raising Awareness
As a responsible retailer we strive to reduce our food waste. So as part of food waste action week today, we're showcasing what we're doing across the Society to help the cause and how you, as a colleague, can play your part too.
Food waste from our Food Stores has been going to anaerobic digestion to produce renewable energy for a number of years, and we are now going a step further to ensure that more food that would be going to waste is being consumed by our customers and by those in need.
Over the last year we have also rolled out ‘Too Good To Go’ across our Food Stores to help us reduce food waste, and we are trialling activity to enable food sharing groups and good causes to access our waste food where possible.
Too Good To Go – Saving over 20,000 meals
Too Good To Go has a simple mission: to make sure all food gets eaten, not wasted.
In 2016, a group of entrepreneurs witnessed restaurant staff throwing away fresh food. The food’s only problem? It hadn’t sold in time, and no one was around to take it off the restaurant’s hands. The group pioneered a seamless solution: an app that lists businesses’ unsold food so local consumers can find, buy and enjoy it.
Now, thousands of Magic Bags are rescued from businesses like Midcounties Co-op everyday across the UK, Europe, USA and Canada.
Our partnership with Too Good To Go started with a pilot which launched last June, and, following a successful rollout to all stores at the end of September, we’ve already ensured 35,000 Magic Bags of food have been eaten and enjoyed by local Too Good To Go app users. This is equivalent to over 20,000 meals which have been saved from going to waste.
Click here to find out more and download the app.
Community Fridges
Many of our communities have a local community fridge provision which has massively reduced Food waste. The ‘fridges’ are 100% volunteer-run and over the last few months it’s been great to see Community Fridges at the following locations:
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Witney Oxford Community Fridge
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Banbury Community Fridge
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Swindon Community Fridge
Tips for reducing your own food waste!
As a colleague, you can play your part too, check out our Food Waste tips below:
Meal Planning
Planning your meals at the start of every week can ensure that nothing goes to waste! Think about the meals you want to have for the full week, work out what ingredients you need (and quantities) and shop accordingly. Not only will you minimise your food waste, but you'll save money on the food you may have had to throw out!
Storing Leftovers
Make sure that when you've finished your meal, you store the leftover appropriately. This means putting that leftover food into appropriate containers and then storing it in the fridge or freezer for a later date, no need to throw anything out!
Clear Out Your Cupboards
Use your spare time to go through your cupboards and organise by the expiry dates, this makes sure that you've got a good idea of what options you have in your cupboards and when they need to be eaten by. Make sure that if there's any cupboard food that won't get eaten is given to someone who will, like a neighbour or a food bank.
Expiry Dates
Keeping on top of the expiry dates in your fridge and cupboards can help to make sure that nothing goes out of date and is wasted! Try and plan your meals around the expiry dates of the products you have at home and start with the food that's going to go out of date soonest.
Batch Cooking
Cooking in batches is a great way to save money and stretch out your food supplies. Cooking chilli con carne, a curry or a cottage pie? All of these can be cooked in batches and stored in the freezer for later, just make sure the food has cooled down and the container is sealed properly first.
Root to Stem Cooking
Root to stem cooking means using every possible element of a food ingredient. For example, many of us will not use the large stalk of broccoli, you can actually chop this into slices and cook with the rest of the broccoli, so nothing goes to waste. To find out more about root to stem cooking, click here.
Be Inventive
You may not always have enough leftover from cooking a meal to save it for later, that doesn't mean you can't get inventive with those last scraps! To find out more about how you can get inventive with your leftovers, click here.
Share Your Surplus
If you've recently done a big food shop or just know that there's food in your kitchen that will go to waste, then share it! Offer your surplus food to a neighbour, vulnerable person or a local food bank through your nearest Midcounties Food Store.
How food waste ties into our Society Steering Wheel
We have a Society Steering Wheel in place to reduce food waste across our food stores. Colleagues can help us achieve this by managing their Store Food waste as effectively as possible, ensuring that we maximise our ‘too good to go’ activity, and then anything that can’t be sold through ‘too good to go’, to be sold through our ‘reduce to clear process’.
If you want to read more on how our Steering Wheel impacts the Society click here.