What are the largest stores doing to waste as little food as possible? The correct answer is still not enough

The topic of food waste returns like a boomerang, especially now that the new Food Waste Act has entered into force. What are stores doing to throw away as little as possible and what can we do to reduce our own bad habits?

The Act on Counteracting Food Waste entered into force on September 18, 2019 and pursuant to it all stores with an area over 250 m2, for which food constitutes at least 50 percent. total revenues, they are required to sign contracts with charities.

Until now, stores have concluded such agreements on a voluntary basis. From March 1, 2020 this will be mandatory, although for the first two years the new law will cover only the largest of stores - those over 400m2 of space.

If the store does not sign a contract with a charity after this time, it will have to pay a fine of PLN 5,000, and then pay PLN 0.10 for every 1 kg of wasted food.

Why are stores supposed to fight food waste?

This question is justified because it is not stores that are primarily responsible for wasting food, but us consumers. According to the FUSIONS project data from 2012, only 5% food is wasted on the store side, while 53% is wasted in households.

However, as Food Bank representatives rightly point out in the ' Don't waste food 2019 ' report:

(...) it is the shops that are responsible for shaping consumer attitudes, e.g. buying "exaggerated" and overloaded baskets, whose contents often ends up in the basket. Large-format stores not only often waste good quality food, but above all shape consumer attitudes and influence their purchasing decisions.

Galloping capitalism makes images like this ...

…whether this…

... are not an unheard-of phenomenon at all, but an infamous norm in many large-format stores.

In the second photo we see a 120-liter garbage bag filled with bread, which was still ready to be sold when the store was closed. Unfortunately, too much was produced to sell them on the same day, and as we all know, bread from supermarkets (especially deep-frozen) is sooner suitable for stoning the infidels the next day than for consumption.

According to Food Banks , in 2018 as much as 23.7 percent. bread was just wasted food. For consumers, excessive shopping is usually the reason for waste. In the case of shops, the problem could be solved simply by producing less bread.

An employee of one of the large surface stores told me that it was not that easy. The amount of baked bread is determined in advance, and even the store managers themselves order employees to "bake boldly" - so that the customer entering the store always see the wealth of full shelves.

Similar problems arise in the case of meats, which - according to Food Banks - constitute 12.8 percent. food waste. Fresh meat and cold cuts are also ordered in shops too much.

As a store employee told me:

District managers are pushing stores to order more. Mainly meats and products from fruit and vegetable alleys. There are 5 vegetable pallets, of which 2 can no longer fit, and these are products that the next day are not too suitable for sale, such as lettuce, grapes. Bread the same. We get more from the bakery and the one we have to bake, which today went about 18 kg of bread: breads, rolls, cakes.

Meat is a tragedy. For example, yesterday's delivery did not fit, today before closing we filled the cold stores with what was left, and tomorrow morning there will be delivery and it will not go to the cold store, but to the warehouse. (...) today we have thrown out about 10 kg of meat with an end date tomorrow.

Similar signals come from the employees of stores of other retail chains and the same motif is everywhere: stores order and produce too much goods on site to create the impression of abundance on customers.

Consequently, not only is more food thrown out than necessary, but also encourages customers to excessive consumption, which results in even greater waste in households.

What are stores doing to avoid wasting food?

I asked directly at Food Banks about cooperation with retail chains. The details of the partnership between Food Banks and stores were explained to me by Anna Przetakiewicz, PR and promotion specialist:

In general, cooperation with retail chains is as follows - we sign a relevant agreement regarding the transfer of unsold but good-quality food centrally on behalf of all 31 Food Banks (i.e. between the commercial network and the Federation of Polish Food Banks, which represents all BŻs).

Then, the stores that were covered by the contract cooperate directly with BŻ or their partner organizations locally. The donation process takes place as follows: the store informs about the donation that it would like to give, and the Food Bank or a partner organization authorized by BŻ receives food from the supermarket and transfers it to the most deprived people, thanks to which the food goes exactly where it should.

All food donations are recorded by BŻ in the storage system.

So far, the problem with shops wasting food was the fact that it was impossible to assess the scale of the deal. Only the stores of the Tesco Polska chain have published data on the scale of food waste in the last 3 years.

As Anna Przetakiewicz says, the new law is to change this:

Pursuant to the Act on counteracting food waste, stores will be obliged to make public information on the amount of the fee due or the value of food transferred to NGOs. In addition, food sellers will be required to provide the Provincial Funds for Environmental Protection and Water Management with a report on food waste.

Fortunately, without a bill every year Food Banks are observing an increase in the amount of food transferred.

In 2019, due to cooperation with commercial networks, we managed to save almost 13 thousand. tons of food - it's about 3,000 tons of food more than last year. The Act on Combating Food Waste can significantly increase the amount of these donations.

The food donated to Food Banks then goes to aid organizations: cafeterias, Social Welfare Homes, community day rooms, night shelters, hospices, orphanages and support centers for single mothers.

According to Food Banks data, in 2018 alone it was possible to feed 1.6 million people a year, including 204 670 children (up to the age of 17).

And what are the biggest players doing to waste as little food as possible?

Both Lidl Polska and, more recently, Biedronka, carry out promotional campaigns overestimating food, which will soon expire. These are, respectively, the campaigns ' I buy, I don't waste ' and ' We respect food '.

As Aleksandra Robaszkiewicz from Lidl Poland says:

The approach to the topic of not wasting food is a permanent and important element of Lidl Polska's corporate social responsibility. At the level of each store, we optimize the volume of orders and run a discount system to effectively minimize the risk of waste. Each store monitors the best-before date of sold products - when the time is short, the products are on sale.

A similar strategy is adopted by Biedronka, which has been implementing a project of donating unsold food to charity campaigns since 2016, although its nature depends on specific stores.

Sylwia Krzyżycka, director of the environmental protection department in the Biedronka network, describes the company's activities as follows:

In 2019, we worked together with as many as 83 Public Benefit Organizations, to which we donated food from 1639 our stores (over half of 3002 Biedronki at the end of the fourth quarter). Among the OPP were, among others, archdiocesan and diocesan organizations of Caritas, the Federation of Polish Food Banks, as well as other, also local organizations - moreover, we are constantly looking for new partners. According to current data, nearly 2,271 volunteers and OPP employees are involved in the collection and distribution of food donations from Biedronka.

In the period from 2018 to September 2019, Biedronka donated over 11,600 tons of food, which gives the equivalent of nearly 23.2 million meals to those in need.

Our cooperation with partners such as the Federation of Polish Food Banks is multifaceted and is not limited to the transfer of food. Therefore, in May 2019, Biedronka introduced the Good Bag to its paper offer - 20 grosze from the sale of each bag is transferred to the activities of Food Banks related to the collection and distribution of unsold food from stores. Thanks to the sale of 1 million bags in 2019, Biedronka donated 200,000 to Food Banks. zł.

These words are also confirmed by Anna Przetakiewicz from Food Banks. The federation has been cooperating with Biedronka since 2017 and at this moment almost 700 stores of the chain are providing food to Food Banks.

You can still do more.

According to declarative data from the study conducted by the Warsaw University of Life Sciences SGGW in 2019, almost 42 percent. of us admit that we sometimes throw away food.

According to data from Food Banks, in 2018 a statistical Polish family lost even 2.5 thousand in this way. PLN, while in Europe we occupy an unworthy 5th place in the ranking of the amount of food thrown away.

We have already written about what we can do not to waste food at home , so it's a shame to repeat it. Interesting, however, are the main reasons why we waste food at home, mentioned in SGGW research:

The solution to the problem therefore comes down to thoughtful shopping. Made with a list, with a plan and not "on stock". Studies also show that we do not read labels - we do not pay attention to the expiry date and we do not distinguish between 'best before' and 'should be consumed' (although it is not entirely our fault - this provision should be standardized ).

Food Banks also indicate that we often buy with our eyes. To quote the 2019 report:

Most small, irregular vegetables or fruits are sent to the garbage bin on the store shelf. Almost 74% respondents do not reach for this type of products (rarely or never), and almost half of the respondents (48.7%) have never decided to buy a small carrot or crooked pepper. It is worth noting that this is not about products unfit for consumption, but full-fledged articles that differ only in appearance from the "ideal" representatives of the species.

It is not surprising then that the Food Banks campaign entitled "Buy lonely bananas", as much as 47.4 percent Poles rarely or never reach for individual bananas. Usually we reach for the whole bunch.

We also throw away food because we have no idea how to use it. As noted by the president of the Federation of Polish Food Banks, Marek Borowski in the 2019 report:

While it is understandable to discard food because of visible signs of deterioration, other reasons are difficult to understand, such as missing an expiry date or no idea how to use a particular product in the kitchen. Especially the last reason testifies to the lack of respect for food that is characteristic of modern times. It is all the more sad because we live in a time when a recipe using any ingredient can be easily found on the Internet and many cookbooks.

The act on counteracting food waste will not make us wake up in a new reality. She depends on us.

It is nice that stores will be forced to reliably transfer products that could not be sold before they break down.

However, the Act does not change the fact that stores will continue to use a variety of tactics to encourage consumers to make the most abundant purchases and it is difficult to blame them for that, in the end they persist.

It is consumers who, unfortunately, have the greatest responsibility for improving this state of affairs and no act will change that. So, we only have one thing left - to buy wisely. Only so much and so much.

What are the largest stores doing to waste as little food as possible? The correct answer is still not enough