Lidl Ireland, along with the Minister for Agricultural, Food, and Marine and the Minister of State at the Department of Environment, Climate, and Communications, has committed to the new Food Waste Forum Charter as part of the Retail Action Group for Food Waste.
This charter sees Lidl commit to reducing food waste by distributing surplus food. As part of the Food Waste Charter, Lidl pledged to build awareness and understanding of food waste and its issues and promote innovative food waste prevention solutions.
Since signing the Food Waste Charter in 2018, Lidl has redistributed more than four million meals to local food banks through its long-standing partnership with FoodCloud.
Earlier this year, Lidl launched innovative Waste Not fruit and vegetable boxes to help combat food waste and offer customers even more value. The boxes, priced at just €3 for 5kg, are made up of loose fruit and vegetables from multipacks where other items in the packs may have been slightly damaged.
The items placed in these innovative boxes are still perfect to eat. Since February, Lidl has sold more than 52,000 boxes, saving an estimated 260,000kg of fruit and vegetables from going to waste.
J.P. Scally, Chief Executive Officer at Lidl Ireland and Northern Ireland, said the retailer was happy to work closely with the Environmental Protection Agency, Minister McConalogue, Minister Smyth and The Retail Action Group for Food Waste.
“We are proud to continue our commitment to reducing food waste in the Irish retail sector and are pleased to have a tangible result of our efforts in reaching the milestone of 4 million meals redistributed to local food banks earlier this year,” said Scally.
Scally continued that Lidl has ambitious food waste targets.
“As we look to the future, we are committed to building on this progress and challenging ourselves to find innovative ways to reduce food waste across the sector further, both in our operations and encouraging our suppliers, partners and customers to do so.”
