Stop Food Waste 2024 – How we are fighting food waste at Foodbuy

23 April 2024

33% of all food produced globally is lost or wasted every year. 

24th April marks Stop Food Waste Day, an international day of action in the fight against food waste. As a leading food procurement organisation in the UK, we have responsibility to reduce food waste. Through our partnership with FareShare and City Harvest, we actively contribute to this cause, ensuring that surplus food reaches those in need while reducing waste. 

Fighting food waste with FareShare 

That’s why we are incredibly proud to be partners with FareShare, the UK’s longest running food redistribution charity. They are a national network of charitable food redistributors, made up of 18 independent organisations. Together, they take good quality surplus food from right across the food industry and get it to nearly 8,500 frontline charities and community groups. 

We are incredibly proud that our partnership supports their inspirational mission, with the food they redistribute reaching charities across the UK, including school breakfast clubs, older people’s lunch clubs, homeless shelters, and community cafes. 

Through this partnership, we support FareShare in providing good quality meals to those who need it, whilst reducing a huge amount of waste.  

Since partnering in 2014, we've achieved significant milestones with FareShare: 

• 1 million meals: We've redistributed the equivalent of 1 million meals to FareShare's network of 8,500 charities. 
• Leading Food Partner Award: Honoured with FareShare's Leading Food Partner Logo for our commitment to diverting surplus food and fighting food waste. 
• In 2023 alone: 29.78 tonnes of food redistributed and 1367 charities helped   
• 433.10 tonnes of CO2e saved 

Harinder Singh, Head of Sustainability, at Foodbuy UK&I, said: 

“Tackling food waste is an important and necessary part of our sustainability ambitions. The partnership and the goals we are hitting with FareShare are just one example of the great work that our sustainability team are doing. I am so proud of how far we have come and have every confidence that our team will continue to hit more incredible targets such as this in the future”. 

City Harvest  

Foodbuy also stands alongside City Harvest, London’s leading food rescue charity which is addressing food waste and food poverty, by delivering free surplus food to people across London facing food poverty. 

City Harvest delivers to every kind of charity group in London, including food banks, faith groups, community centres, domestic abuse refuges, hostels, shelters, food banks, schools, refugee centres, mental health centres, family centres and youth clubs. 

By choosing to provide surplus food to City Harvest, Foodbuy has nourished thousands of people across London experiencing food poverty, supporting City Harvest’s mission to reduce food insecurity and protect the planet by diverting quality, nutritious, edible surplus food from waste and redistributing it to those facing food poverty. 

Since February 2021, Foodbuy's donations to City Harvest have amounted to: 

• 26,318 kilograms / 26 tonnes of food provided  
• 62,662 meals delivered to charities feeding their communities 
• 107.7 tonnes of GHGs prevented, by rescuing food for human consumption 

We spoke to our Culinary Support Manager, Matt Dodds, about certain techniques he uses in his personal life, and implements when working with our clients. With 15 years’ experience as a chef and a passion for making a difference through food, he’s given us some insightful tips: 

• Plan ahead – creating (and sticking to) a meal plan can be a great way to minimise food waste. 
• Shop smart – opt to buy versatile ingredients which can be used across a range of dishes. A great example of this is mince. 
• Batch-make bases, not whole meals. 
• Repurpose scrap parts that you would otherwise throw out – e.g., potato and other root vegetable peelings can be used to create crisps. 
• Be creative with leftovers. 

To find out more about our partnership with FareShare, visit https://www.foodbuy.co.uk/case-studies/fareshare/  

To find out more about City Harvest, visit www.cityharvest.org.uk