Tesco aims to halve food waste by 2025

The UK’s largest supermarket chain Tesco is to align executive pay and bonuses  to achieving “key sustainability measures” across the business with the group looking to halve food waste by 2025.

Boss of the retailer, Ken Murphy said that while he was “proud” of the company had made in making sure good food doesn’t go to waste that Tesco understood that there was “still more work to do” in accomplishing its sustainability goals”. 

Halving food waste within three years would put the business five years ahead of the 2030 United Nations sustainability goal.

Tesco said: “In a year of unprecedent challenges for retailers, suppliers and customers, tackling food waste has never been more urgent. It not only contributes to climate change, but it also has an impact on our pockets.”

The business said it would continue to invest in its existing food surplus redistribution programmes, including partnerships with charity network FareShare and food sharing app OLIO, to “ensure even more surplus food is diverted to people who need it most”.

Tesco also said that it would help suppliers reduce waste and where food could not be passed on to humans it would be distributed as animal feed.  

Murphy said: “While I’m proud of our progress in making sure good food doesn’t go to waste, we know there’s still more work to do.

“By accelerating our target to halve food waste in our operations by 2025 and aligning executive pay performance targets to this goal, we hope to drive further transformative change.

“However, the work we and our suppliers do won’t tackle the issue alone. We have long called for Government to introduce mandatory food waste reporting to help measure and judge if real action is happening. Action must be taken across the whole industry.”

The news comes as the John Lewis Partnership said it would invest £2 million to fund ecosystem protection and regeneration projects in the UK and India through a new a partnership with global wildlife charity WWF.

The group, through its supermarket Waitrose and its won department stores, will also “commit to zero deforestation” in the sourcing of key ingredients across own-brand product supply chains.

Marija Rompani, director of ethics and sustainability across the business, said: “We all know that we can’t exist without nature, it is essential for our survival and it will play a vital role in solving the problem of climate change.

“This is why we’re going back to our roots and focusing our efforts on protecting and restoring nature. Whether it’s eliminating fossil fuel use across our transport operations, investing millions in conservation projects in regions where we source our products, or helping our farmers make the transition to net zero, we are acting where we can make the biggest impact.”