Supermarkets play an integral role in supporting the economies of rural communities like South Shropshire. They not only create exciting career opportunities but contribute socially and environmentally too. Protecting our environment is a key part of my plan. It involves moving towards a more circular economy where resources are used for as long as possible and waste is minimised. I am concerned that 10.7 million tonnes of food is wasted annually. Worth £17 billion, it is a waste of resources used to produce it. Supermarkets can play a vital role in leading efforts to cut food waste. So, I asked them what action is being taken to measure and reduce it in operations and supply chains – including by donating surplus food to charity and supporting local food producers. This is part of my campaign to champion local farmers and enhance food security.
Boots:
As you know, Boots is the UK’s leading health and beauty retailer and community pharmacy, and whilst we do sell food and drink products in selected stores as part of the Boots lunchtime meal deal promotion, food and drink is a relatively small proportion of our overall product offer to customers.
Nevertheless, we are keen to play our part in reducing food waste, working with our suppliers, partners, and customers to ensure that waste is minimised and surplus food redistributed as far as possible.
We have set a target to reduce food waste by 50% against a 2015 baseline as part of the WRAP Food Waste Reduction Roadmap. Indeed, Boots continues to reduce overall tonnes of food waste year-on-year and we are working towards a goal of reducing food waste as a percentage of sales by at least 50%.
In recent years, Boots has implemented several initiatives to reduce food waste in our stores and operations, including minimising waste by matching product stock with consumer demand, the addition of chiller doors to reduce product wastage, and moving from multi-item boxes of sandwiches and salads to ‘single pick’.
Boots is also partnering with Olio on its Food Waste Heroes programme across over 600 stores nationwide, with Boots store team members able to use the Olio platform to notify volunteers that pre-packaged food nearing its sell-by date is available for collection, ensuring that edible surplus food is redistributed to people in need within the local community. In the 2024 financial year, 450,000 surplus food items were distributed via this partnership.
Additionally, as members of the UK Food and Drink Pact (Courtauld commitment), we voluntarily report our data to WRAP in support of their collaborative efforts to reduce food waste by 50% by 2030.
Tesco:
We share similar concerns and ambitions on food waste as those outlined in your letter which is why we are committed to working with our producers and suppliers to halve food waste in our supply chain by 2030.
At the core of Tesco’s purpose is the goal to maintain availability for our customers, whilst minimising food left over at the end of each day. We were the first UK retailer to publicly report our food waste figures in 2013 and have been supporting the call for mandatory food waste reporting. More than 60% of Tesco’s fresh sales, by volume in the UK, are now provided by suppliers who publicly report on their own operational food waste.
We know that retailers cannot solve the problem of food waste alone – the whole supply chain also has a role to play. This is why we have many initiatives to support change starting with our farmers and growers, through to our customers. We use WRAP’s hierarchy to reduce our product surplus where we can and to make the best possible use of it where we can’t.
For example, we find creatives ways to work with our suppliers to redirect surplus stock to make ready-to-eat meals which are sold in store, use our Perfectly Imperfect range, and run promotions for surplus stock. We work closely with local charities and community groups to ensure any good food left at the end of trading is made available to those in need. Our Community Food Connection, which donates surplus food to these groups, has provided more than 220 million meals since it started in 2012. We also support the King's Coronation Food Project which targets all forms of waste across the food supply chain and redirects surplus food to support people experiencing food insecurity.
For this year’s Food Waste Action Week, we will be building on our existing work and directing customers to our Real Food website which focuses on reducing food waste at home and helping them spend less and budget more. We have also done work to make it easier for our customers to find our “reduced in price, just as nice” sections in-store, helping them locate food bargains and cut down on waste.
More details on our food waste actions, including how we target and measure food waste, and opportunities for the industry, can be found in our 2024 Food Waste Report which can be downloaded from here.
We are also proud champions of our local farmers as UK agriculture’s largest customer and recognise their importance for food security. We have strong, long-term relationships with many British suppliers and farmers, some of which are decades long, and we always strive to source produce from the UK wherever possible. For example. 100% of our fresh chicken, fresh eggs, butter, milk and cream is British, 100% of our fresh beef is from the UK or ROI, and 100% of our Finest range for lamb, bacon, gammon is British and sausages are made from British pork.
Our various Sustainable Farming Groups rewards farmers for achieving higher production standards. We offer transparent pricing structures which gives our farmers and growers the certainty to invest long-term, and we have provided £75million to help those impacted recently by higher input costs. Our Buy British button on our website makes it easier for customers across the UK to shop for British grown and produced food and we ensure the Union Flag is prominently displayed on all British produce. I have attached some data which was shared with you earlier this week which contains details on how we support local economies and British farming.
Marks and Spencer
We are grateful for your recognition of the role that supermarkets like M&S play in supporting rural communities like the one you represent.
At M&S, tackling food waste is a key priority. Through our long-standing partnership with Neighbourly, we have donated over 100 million meals since 2015, supporting over 4.7 million people across the UK. This initiative has helped prevent over 49,000 tonnes of good-quality food from going to waste. We are committed to redistributing 100% of our edible surplus food by 2025/26, as part of our Plan A roadmap to net zero. This year alone, we have donated over 30 million meals—the highest ever in our partnership. Additionally, we provided freezers to a further 120 stores and over 70% of our stores can now repurpose in-store bakery bread as frozen garlic bread products. We are also trialling a new surplus food initiative, enabling individual collectors to pick up donations from stores without a regular charity partner, further increasing the amount of fresh food reaching those in need.
Our Bridgnorth Simply Food store is actively supporting the local community through its partnerships with NotJust in Wellington and Telford as well as Bridgnorth Food Bank. Over the past year, the store has donated 11 tonnes of edible surplus food to these charities, helping to provide vital meals for those in need while reducing food waste in the region.
Supporting British farmers is also central to our commitment to quality and sustainability. We work directly with 9,500 UK Select Farmers and growers to uphold the highest industry standards. All our milk, beef, pork, salmon, chicken, whole eggs, and fresh lamb are always 100% British, and we continually invest in British seasonal produce, such as strawberries, asparagus, and core vegetables. We also stand by our farmers on key issues, advocating for long-term policy certainty and fair industry practices, including supporting the NFU’s call to pause changes to Inheritance Tax that could impact farm viability.
Co-Op
Our member-owners have told us that Food Waste is an issue that they care passionately about so we are committed to helping our colleagues, member-owners and customers prevent food waste at home. We are working with them to ensure our food is eaten and enjoyed in the home, not wasted and we provide top tips and guidance on our website to prevent food waste in the home.
Our Food Waste Prevention Strategy focusing on prevention first, ensuring that wherever possible, we will work with our colleagues, our member-owners and our suppliers to stop food from becoming surplus in the first place.
We strive to continuously improve labelling and information on-pack, and where possible extend life on products, because we know this impacts on how food is used and stored at home. We publicly support WRAP’s Love Food, Hate Waste campaign and promote information to help prevent household food waste through our partner Hubbub.
We are committed to stocking more loose fruit and vegetables and now have a loose offering on 27 of our produce lines with plans to introduce more lines and increase the depth of distribution on existing ones into 2025.
However, as a convenience retailer, removing packaging from fresh fruit and vegetables is challenging, where packaging does the job that a trained greengrocer would do in a larger store. Packaging helps to protect the produce in these small stores, many of which do not have chilled produce fixtures.
We are taking steps to help stores reduce the amount of fruit and veg waste that might occur as a result of removing packaging which includes encouraging our stores to redistribute more surplus fruit and veg to local community groups via our redistribution platform, Caboodle which we launched in 2022. It is an online tool which matches stores with local community groups to redistribute food. With over 2,000 stores, we are delighted that over 81% of these stores redistribute food on a weekly basis and we are supporting close to 2,000 local community groups. If you are aware of any local groups that would like to join this platform, please do signpost them to the website so that they can sign up.
I trust you will see that we are guided by the principle that we value our food, and research shows that if people care about how their food was produced, they are less likely to waste it. We want all colleagues, members-owners and customers to value our food too and to help us protect the commercial, ethical, nutritional and environmental value in our food.
Aldi
At Aldi, we recognise the integral role supermarkets play in supporting local economies and creating career opportunities, and we are committed to operating responsibly in the communities we serve.
Food waste is an urgent environmental and social issue and we actively measure our food waste data to minimise wastage across our operations and supply chains. We’re pleased that we were the first UK retailer to halve food waste, in line with the Courtauld 2030 and UN SDG Champions 12.3 commitments, by reducing food waste intensity by over 67% since 2017. We achieved our target eight years early but we’re not stopping there, and to challenge ourselves further, we’ve set ourselves an ambitious new target: to achieve a 90% reduction in food waste that comes from our operations by 2030.
To achieve these commitments, we are working hard to prevent waste in our operations where possible. We offer significant price reductions (up to 75%) on fresh produce, bakery, and chilled products nearing the end of their shelf life, making them more accessible to customers and reducing waste.
Aldi’s policy of ‘Low Waste to No Waste’ is core to our in-store training plans and activities, and colleagues are encouraged to ensure that edible food surplus is sold at a reduced price. Where we cannot sell products at a reduced price, they are redistributed through our charity partners. Aldi branded production surplus from our suppliers, which would have instead been destined for waste, is also collected by our charity partners.
We work closely with WRAP to increase our loose fruit and vegetable offering in line with their pathway and we have recently undertaken additional loose trials. In addition, we are in the process of implementing WRAP’s best practice storage labelling across all relevant products to encourage consumers to store products correctly to get the maximum shelf life.
Ahead of Food Waste Action Week, we partnered with food waste disruptor, Lagomchef, to create recipe content for his Instagram and TikTok channels using ingredients from our TGTG Surprise Bag. The dishes show how easy it is to make delicious and diverse meals from a handful of ingredients, all while helping prevent food from going to waste. In addition, we are featuring Food Waste Action Week in our in-store leaflet, promoting awareness of the week and are also launching a competition to encourage children to create a food waste poster to reduce food waste.
We also note your point around the proportion of farmers in your constituency, and as a business, we are dedicated to championing Great British quality and our entire core range of fresh primary beef, pork, poultry, eggs, milk, butter and cream are all sourced from British suppliers. In 2024, we invested more than ever with British suppliers and growers. Over 80% of our sales came from British suppliers and on average over 45% of our fresh fruit and vegetables are British.
Moreover, we understand the difficulties British farmers are facing and we believe agreeing long-term arrangements with suppliers is essential to supporting the industry. We are also building resilience through our work with our Beef and Dairy Farm Partnerships and through our work with the Royal Countryside Fund (RCF).
We’re also investing £600 million in the British beef industry every year for the next five years, as part of our ongoing commitment to supporting Great British quality and assisting UK farmers and producers.
Finally, thank you for your interest in visiting our store, unfortunately at this time we’re unable to accommodate visits. However, if you do have any further questions, I would be happy to answer them.
Further details on what we are doing to be Fairer, Greener and Healthier can be read in our 2023 sustainability report, Making Sustainability Affordable, which outlines many of Aldi’s initiatives and the progress made. I will ensure a copy of our 2024 report is shared with you once published later this year.
Sainsbury's
We agree that tackling food waste is really important. We are committed to reducing our food waste by 50% by 2030 and we are members of WRAP’s Food Waste Reduction Roadmap and the Consumer Goods Forum’s Food Waste Coalition. With these initiatives, we have committed to reporting our food waste in line with best practice and support waste reduction across our value chain.
Since 2013, none of our food waste has been sent to landfill; unsold food is redistributed within our communities, sent for animal feed or, as a last resort, sent to anaerobic digestion. We are transforming our logistics too, with a fleet of 30 HGVs at our Bristol distribution centre using liquid biofuel produced directly from food waste, saving over 3,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide annually.
Since 2017 we have donated more than 30 million meals to communities through our partnership with Neighbourly. In addition, we work with Olio to redistribute surplus food nearing its 'use-by' date to support people in the communities we serve. We recently joined FareShare’s Coronation Food Project which uses surplus food to produce nutritious food and help people in need.
Through Comic Relief we partner with food clubs like The Bread & Butter Thing which distributes surplus to people on low incomes, reducing the amount of food that goes to waste. Over 6.4 million meals have been distributed through this, equating to around 4,000 tonnes of food redistributed rather than wasted. More generally our stores across the West Midlands have donated over 500,000 meals, equalling over 245 tonnes of food.
We are helping our customers to reduce food waste too. We have removed ‘best before’ labels from over 230 of our products. In September 2023, we became the largest UK retailer to remove all ‘use by’ dates on our own-brand milk (including all fresh and organic milk sold across England, Scotland and Wales), instead moving to ‘best before’ guidance.
As a UK retailer, we are very proud to support British producers. Across South Shropshire we source from 95 beef farms, 31 lamb farms and one dairy farm, building strong relationships through our UK Farmer and Grower Development Groups. We are working with these suppliers to develop a more resilient and sustainable British agricultural system.
Morrisons
Food waste
We share your concern about food waste and take a wide range of steps to minimise it in our stores and manufacturing sites. These are set out below. We are committed to halving our food waste by 2030 and many of our actions chime with the theme of Food Waste Action Week and are designed to help customers “choose what you’ll use”.
● We are proud to offer a market-leading range of loose fresh produce, with up to 76 varieties of loose fruit and veg across our stores
● We sell eggs in both cartons and loose so customers can choose the amount they need
● Our market street counters also enable shoppers to buy the exact quantity they need - for example someone living alone might want only a single pork chop or salmon fillet
● We take great care to order what we think we can sell and when products are close to their ‘use by’ or ‘best before’ dates we offer them at reduced prices.
● Through the 'Too Good To Go' initiative, customers can purchase 'Magic Bags' containing food nearing its sell-by date at a reduced price. We have sold over two million of these bags through the Too Good To Go app, saving 2,000 tonnes of food from being wasted.
● Our Naturally Wonky range includes fruit and vegetables that may be misshapen, have skin blemishes or growth cracks, or be much smaller or larger than average. Launched in 2015, it helps to minimise food waste in the field and offers affordable produce to customers. It also gives farmers an alternative route to market.
● In 2023, we took the step to remove date labels and display dates on selected fruit, vegetables and salad items. Our aim is to encourage customers to use their own judgement as to whether produce is good to eat after being bought and stored at home. These changes have been endorsed by WRAP, whose latest research suggests 8.2 million shopping baskets of fruit and vegetables are wasted every year in our homes.
● In January 2022, we removed 'use by' dates on 90 percent of our own-brand milk, replacing them with 'best before' dates, encouraging customers to decide for themselves whether their milk is still good to drink.
● We recognise the importance of helping our customers reduce food waste at home. We are continually evaluating our labelling and storage instructions to provide customers
with the right information to make the most of the food they buy. Later this year, we will be adding more storage guidance and tips to save food waste onto our produce packaging.
● Where surplus food does arise, we work with a range of partners to redistribute as much as possible. All our stores have a dedicated Community Champion who is empowered
to give surplus food to local good causes such as food banks.
● Our Morrisons manufacturing sites and distribution centres work with The Bread and Butter Thing and FareShare to redistribute surplus food to where it’s needed most in
communities. We redistributed over 600 tonnes of food this way in 2024. Turning to the challenges faced in this area. We recognise that packaging can protect produce from damage and can extend its shelf life so selling loose isn’t always the right answer. For example potatoes are light sensitive and last longer when packaged.
Additionally, we recognise that some customers are still unclear about the distinction between 'best before' and 'use by' dates. We are continuing to engage with WRAP on the issue. Finally, donating products with a ‘use by’ date can be difficult due to the limited time frame for donation. We are exploring solutions to overcome challenges related to staff and volunteer availability for collections during these times, including a trial of ‘use by’ products in Too Good To Go bags.
Support for local producers
Your letter also asked about our work to support farmers and local food producers.
Morrisons is British farming's biggest direct supermarket customer and we care deeply about our relationships with farmers, many of which go back generations. We work with over 100 livestock, dairy and vegetable farmers in Shropshire.
We have our own abattoirs, fruit and veg packing facilities, processing plants and bakeries and are unique in preparing and making more than half of the fresh food in stores. We source more fresh food directly from British farmers than any other supermarket and spend well over £1b with them annually. All our fresh eggs, milk, cream, butter and cheese are 100% British.
We're proud of the relationships we have with our farmers and have various initiatives to support British Farmers, such as our For Farmers range which allows customers to give directly back to our farmers. To date this has raised over £25m and has been used to drive improvements in sustainability and animal welfare on farms. We also have various cashflow schemes and practical industry support programmes in place.
We are a founding partner of the School of Sustainable Food and Farming, at Harper Adams University in Shropshire, where we are working with the farming industry in a pre-competitive space to improve sustainability on farms. In addition, through our support for the Royal Countryside Fund we support training programmes for farmers, offering free business skills training.
Our ‘Tractor Tuesdays’ initiative offers farmers a 25% discount on all food and drink at our cafes every Tuesday.
Finally, we know how important local suppliers are to our customers and their local communities and we want to help sell more locally sourced products. Our Local Sourcing team makes it as easy as possible for suppliers to work with Morrisons. This includes offering direct supply to our stores, simplified agreements, and preferential payment terms.
