Donating fresh, unsold food
If we have unsold food that’s approaching its best before or use by date, we try to donate it to a local charity through one of our ‘surplus back of store’ food partnerships. And we’ve been doing this since 1998.
Usually, the food we donate includes fresh fruit and vegetables, dry goods such as sugar and pasta, and bakery items made in store.
In March 2017, we had 1,114 of these partnerships across 970 stores – with partner charities including food banks, soup kitchens, homeless centres and community cafes.
They include our Dulwich store’s partnership in south east London with FoodCycle in Peckham. FoodCycle cooks nutritious, three course meals for vulnerable people – and we were the first supermarket to work with them when they started cooking in 2009.