FareShare brings together food industry and retailers for UK's first ever Surplus Food Summit
17 June 2015
- Summit to share best practice and demonstrate how good surplus food can feed people and change lives
- Summit is supported by the British Retail Consortium, the Food and Drink Federation and the Fresh Produce Consortium
- Speakers at the event include Asda, Sainsbury's, Tesco, Nestlé and Kellogg's
- Follow the Summit on Twitter: #surplusfood
FareShare is today hosting the UK's first ever Surplus Food Summit. The event will facilitate the sharing of best practice by food and retail businesses whilst at the same time engaging and enabling more companies to redistribute their surplus food to charity.
The Summit is supported by three national associations representing the industries involved: the Food and Drink Federation (FDF), the British Retail Consortium (BRC) and the Fresh Produce Consortium (FPC). Participants will hear from a range of speakers including senior executives from FareShare partner companies like Asda, Sainsbury's, Tesco, Nestle and Kellogg's.
At the Summit, FareShare will launch its new FareShare Food Efficiency Framework. This unique framework contains an easy to use eight-step approach guiding any food business on the journey to establish processes that will ensure their surplus food is identified as early as possible so that it can be made available for charity redistribution.
Lindsay Boswell, CEO of FareShare said: “Today is about the industry coming together and making the commitment that no good food should be wasted. There are immense social, environmental and economical benefits to be reaped. We all have a part to play in ensuring that good food is used for its purpose and is redistributed to charities to help those people who need it the most.
“We are proud to have the support of BRC, FDF and FPC, some of whose members have already engaged with FareShare to ensure processes are established within their operations to divert good food for people in need. We are immensely pleased to see such a broad range of food businesses turning up today to hear from industry leaders so that they can understand how they too can do the right thing with their surplus food.“
Ian Wright, Director General at the Food and Drink Federation, said: “We're delighted to support the Surplus Food Summit with its aim of demonstrating best practice and collaboration in food redistribution. Preventing food waste is a key priority for food and drink manufacturers, enshrined in our environmental strategy. Where surpluses cannot be avoided, redirecting food to feed people should be a first consideration. We hope this event will encourage more food companies to ensure any surplus food is redistributed to people in need.“
Nigel Jenney, Chief Executive of the Fresh Produce Consortium, said: “Diverting surplus food can help people in need who don't always have regular access to healthy fresh produce. We're encouraging the fresh produce industry to work with organisations like FareShare, and to reduce waste in the supply chain.“
BRC Director General Helen Dickinson said: “For British supermarkets, the first priority is to keep food surplus and food waste to an absolute minimum. While the overall proportion of waste occurring within supermarkets is relatively small, we will nevertheless continue working with our supply chain partners and consumers to reduce waste both along the supply chain and within the home. We are delighted to partner with FareShare for this important Summit, and we hope that in sharing best practice we can continue to ensure as much surplus food as possible goes to the people who need it most.“
FareShare has just reported the biggest increase ever in surplus food it has received from the industry. In the last year, it received 7,360 tonnes from the food industry (a 33% increase on the previous year). This food was redistributed to 1,923 charities and community projects and contributed towards no fewer than 15.3 million meals.
FareShare estimates that there is enough surplus food available for 800 million meals and is seeking continued support from the industry to ensure more is diverted to feed vulnerable people in need.
For More information:
Contact Marita Upeniece, Communications Division, at: Marita.Upeniece@fdf.org.uk, or 0207 420 7140.
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