One of the biggest supermarket’s in Ireland and the UK Tesco have revealed that they are turning their focus on battling food wastage.
The popular brand have said they will launch a new initiative that will see a “wonky veg” range at its stores, along with all surplus food being give to the homeless. According to the store vegetables which are imperfect in size or shape will no longer be thrown away. The new initiative, will see the chain make visually imperfect vegetables available in about 200 of its stores as part of it’s ‘Perfectly Imperfect’ range.
The recent move follows Tesco’s recent partnership with food campaigners to battle the national food wastage scandal. The retail giant in UK partnered with FareShare – a charity group that helps save good food destined for waste – to provide community groups with nutritious meals to feed homeless people. The new partnership involves FoodCloud, a technology company that links the stores of Tesco to charities to ensure that the chain redistributes the surplus food to people who are in dire need of it. Although only 14 Tesco stores currently redistribute its surplus food through the partnership, about 800 of its stores will reportedly be involved in this by end of 2016.
The new initiative was welcomed by Dave Lewis, chief executive at Tesco, who said battling food wastage is a priority for the company. Mr Lewis explained the move is “not to get people to like us again. This is about being a responsible business. Customers today want to know businesses where they choose to shop at are responsible. We have an opportunity, given our size and scale, to make a massive contribution to the communities in which we operate in, and why wouldn’t we do that?”