Helping customers to cut food waste

Helping customers to cut food waste

Reducing food waste is at the top of our customers’ shopping list. We're working with people all over Britain to find simple ways to cut food waste and save money in the process. 

Sainsbury’s colleagues in Swadlincote, promoting Waste less, Save more

We launched a food waste initiative because we listen to customers. In 2015 we asked customers which corporate responsibility areas mattered most and nearly half said food waste.

With families in Britain throwing away £700 of food each year, something needed to be done. 

Our testbed town

We ran a contest to find a community that was incredibly passionate about food waste. This is where we would set up a testbed to invest £1m in projects to see what works and what doesn’t when it comes saving food from the bin.

The winner was Swadlincote, Derbyshire where – over the year ahead – we set about testing more than 20 initiatives to find out which were most effective in cutting food waste. From fridge thermometers and cutting-edge apps, through to community engagement and a successful school programme, we spent 12 months trying, testing and tweaking innovations to find those that could be repeated and have long-term impact nationwide.

As the initial Swadlincote trial came to the end of its 12 month period, we have started to extend the scheme to more than 140 Discovery Communities all over Britain during 2017. Each location had the opportunity to bid for a share of £1m in funding to invest in their own food waste reduction techniques. 

National targets

As the Discovery Communities develop and start to spread their food waste reduction ideas and methods across the UK, we hope that customers throughout Britain will find ways to help save on their household bills.

We’ve already started to learn from our Swadlincote trial, taking some of the most successful ideas – such as fridge thermometers – into stores nationwide.

“This is a great initiative by Sainsbury’s”

Dr Richard Swannell
Director, Waste Resource Action Partnership