Tesco has launched an online ‘food waste hotline’ to help suppliers and growers to pinpoint ongoing food waste hotspots.
The retailer's ‘hotline’ is accessible to all Tesco suppliers via the online Supplier Network, a resource used by over 5,000 Tesco partners.
The ‘hotline’ will serve as a link between these businesses and Tesco Product teams, and will enable them to alert Tesco to potential supply chain food waste and work together to take action.
Supply chain food waste accounts for a significant proportion of UK food waste. The UK has committed to help halve all UK food waste by 2030.
For instance, last summer’s weather meant a warmer period than forecast and as a result the strawberry crop all ripened at the same time. Tesco’s response was to take the whole crop and introduce large boxes of strawberries to stores and sell them off with lower prices than usual, thus helping customers and avoiding food waste on farm.
The ‘hotline’ will provide another way for this to continue, while enabling Tesco to work directly with suppliers to identify emerging as well as the more long term food waste issues they face.
Matt Simister, Commercial Director, Fresh Food and Commodities at Tesco, said: "The ‘food waste hotline’ is another little help we are making to achieve this with our suppliers. It helps our suppliers gain direct, easy access to our Product teams, and this will enable us to identify food waste hotspots and systemic issues and work in partnership to tackle them.”
In the UK alone last year, over 10 million tonnes of food was thrown away.
