Written evidence submitted by Waitrose FOW0057
1.0 Introduction
1.1 Waitrose – a division of the co-owned John Lewis Partnership - has 350 shops in England, Scotland, Wales and the Channel Islands, including 61 convenience shops, and 27 shops at Welcome Break locations. Waitrose also has an e-commerce grocery business and owns and operates its own farm at Leckford in Hampshire. It employs over 56,000 Partners - as we refer to our employees.
1.2 Waitrose combines the convenience of a supermarket with the expertise and service of a specialist shop - dedicated to offering quality food that has been responsibly sourced, combined with high standards of customer service. It also champions British produce abroad, exporting products to 58 markets globally.
1.3 We welcome the opportunity to respond to the EFRA Select Committee’s inaugural inquiry into food waste. We’ve made significant progress since giving evidence to the House of Lords Sub-Committee on Agriculture, Fisheries, Environment and Energy’s inquiry into food waste in 2013.
1.4 Our evidence focuses on the measures we have taken to reduce food waste, including what’s been challenging, what we want to improve and what’s been effective. We hope this gives the Committee a useful insight. We are members of the BRC and also endorse their written evidence.
2.0 Executive Summary
2.1 Consumers want to eat good quality, safe and nutritious food and also expect to see less food wasted. Our firm belief is that all food fit for consumption should be eaten and enjoyed. We were proud to be the first supermarket to send no food waste to landfill from 2012. We have made significant reductions in the amount of food going to Anaerobic Digestion (AD), which we regard as a last resort. Whilst there is still a lot of work to be done in our own business and across the industry to tackle the complex issue of food waste, we are confident that we are making real progress.
2.2 We were founding signatories of the Courtauld Commitment and have recently signed up to Courtauld 2025 - the world–leading voluntary agreement to work along the entire food chain to reduce the environmental impact of our food and drink, from farm to fork and beyond. This includes working towards the collective target of a 20% reduction in food and drink waste in the UK.
2.3 We must continue to innovate and improve standards, the job is by no means done, and we are always looking for ways in which we can improve. The focus for us will be:
● further reducing the amount of edible food that goes to AD, including working with our suppliers so we reduce food waste right through the supply chain.
● working with WRAP as part of Courtauld 2025 to agree how retailers report on food waste, particularly what is included, to ensure we all use a consistent approach.
● working with WRAP to help our customers reduce the amount of food they waste at home.
3.0 Reducing Food Waste at Our Shops/Distribution Centres
3.1 Surplus Food
3.1.1 We focus on striking a balance between offering our customers the products they want to buy while not having surplus stock. Accurate ordering is absolutely the right thing for our business and the environment. We have invested a great deal of resource in improving the accuracy of our forecasting and stock management to minimise the amount of surplus food we have in our shops/depots. Forecasting customer demand is based on factors such as the weather and occasions/events.
3.1.2 The primary focus for our branches is selling edible food to our customers as this makes commercial sense. When food is nearing the end of its shelf life we reduce it to our customers/Partners to encourage its sale. If it doesn’t sell our aim is to donate it to a local organisation or, only if that’s not possible, send it to Anaerobic Digestion (AD) to be converted into green energy. Food that is inedible (also referred to as unavoidable food waste) is sent to AD, for example if it is damaged or if there’s been an issue with storage making it unsafe (such as a refrigeration breakdown). We have made significant progress in supporting our branches to reduce avoidable food waste but we are always looking to improve.
3.1.3 We began donating surplus food to charities in 2012 to find a good home for food that would otherwise go to AD. We expanded this to include not-for-profit organisations, such as the Junk Food Cafe, in 2015 to give our branches more options for food donations.We give our branches the freedom to find a local solution and work with many different organisations and charities across the country.
3.1.4 We have a long-established partnership with Esther Community Enterprise (ECE), who help some of our shops and distribution centres identify and link to local organisations to donate surplus food.
3.1.5 We’re always keen to set up new donation arrangements and encourage organisations to speak to their local Waitrose branch. It has been challenging in some cases to establish our links with local organisations as the volume/types of food we can offer them is erratic and often in low quantities. The organisations we work with have also found it difficult to make the actual collections from our branches as they are available at the end of our trading day - in most cases 9pm at night. We have always been supportive of working with other supermarkets within the local areas where we trade and encourage good causes to make multiple collections from a variety of retailers. We continue to look at ways to increase the effectiveness of our donation process. Our focus is not simply on increasing donations, we want to increase the amount of surplus food that is bought by our customers and Partners. Earlier this year we introduced a trial scheme where Partners can buy food that is on its last day of shelf life or past its best before date at a significantly reduced price.
3.1.6 We also encourage surplus food redistribution from our distribution centres – for example, since July 2015 our facility in Leyland, Lancashire has redistributed in excess of £340,000 of food through a partnership with Company Shop.
3.1.7 Food waste prevention is a key part of our staff training, with every new Partner being trained about managing food waste when they join our shops. We will shortly launch a new, engaging training package to all of our 56,000 Partners this will be aimed at new and existing Partners and the purpose is to educate them on the wider need to reduce food waste and their role in doing so.
3.1.8 We are improving the frequency and quality of food waste data made available to our branch/depot managers to help them understand more about their specific branch/depot through our partnership with a new waste contractor. This will help them understand and manage their waste more effectively.
4.0 Reducing Food Waste in our Supply Chain
4.1 Farming
4.1.1 The Waitrose Agronomy Group has been in place for 17 years and brings together our key suppliers and academics to influence our response to research and agronomic issues. This includes looking at how we make continuous improvements in reducing waste from farm to shelf.
4.1.2 Yield loss is not inevitable and science has a huge role to play. We want to ensure that a high proportion of our growers’ crop is marketable while the resources used to grow it are optimised.
4.1.3 The Waitrose Farm Assessment collates data from over 1000 of our growers globally. It reflects the findings of the Foresight Report on the Future of Food and Farming 2011 and measures progress in five key areas - soil, water, biodiversity, waste and energy. It allows the growers, packers and Waitrose to benefit from improved efficiencies across all major fresh produce categories. It helps us to understand the levels and sources of food waste on-farm.
4.1.4 Our priority is to buy and sell as much of our suppliers’ crop as possible and crop would not be rejected due to minor blemishes. For example, if a climate event affects a crop then we will work with our suppliers to ensure they can get as much of it as possible to market. We offer our customers weather blemished apples from UK growers – some fruit affected by hail, some with slight discolouring and skin marking. We also sell potatoes with marks on and they are perfectly acceptable to our customers. We first sold weather-blemished fruit and veg in 2007. We flex our specifications to sell vegetables for processing into to other products as well as “wonky” carrots, “knobbly” potatoes and misshapen courgettes.
4.1.5 In February 2016 we launched a new range of class two vegetables called ‘a little less than perfect’ with four key crops - carrots, parsnips, onions and potatoes. We have since added strawberries and plan to expand the range further. The vegetables have imperfections such as skin blemishes or splits, or are misshapen or broken. The price per kilo is cheaper than our essential Waitrose (entry level) range and sales are very encouraging.
4.1.6 An integral part of our strong support for British farmers is our commitment to buying the whole carcass and any surplus that we cannot use ourselves is traded out into the market. For example, any edible off-cuts of beef or lamb which Waitrose cannot use go into the catering trade. However, we try to use as much as we can and this led to the introduction of our ‘Forgotten Cuts’ range to help customers rediscover food like cheek and bone marrow, which are delicious but under-appreciated. Wherever we can meat and poultry is also used in our own label manufactured products e.g. ham and pies and trimmings are used in our own label pet food.
4.1.7 On the Leckford Estate (the Waitrose farm), we process cold pressed Rapeseed oil. The seeds, which are grown on the estate are pressed producing oil and also a pellet is formed which is referred to as 'cake'. We use this 'cake' on the estate to feed our dairy cows. In addition, on the Waitrose farm, we have been addressing wastage at the mushroom farm by selling misshapen mushrooms through our farm shop. We have also launched a £1 pack of chestnut mushrooms which has seen our volumes grow, even in the summer months, significantly reducing wastage. We also forecast our volumes knowing seasonality variations, so we manage the volumes we grow with what we forecast that we will sell.
4.2 Manufacturing
4.2.1 We actively work with our manufacturers to minimise waste. For example, if they produce surplus Waitrose branded products, Company Shop redistributes them on their behalf. Also, if a product is not produced to our specification, we will ask the supplier to donate it to Company Shop e.g Waitrose ready meals.
4.2.2 As signatories of Courtauld 2025 we are also increasing our focus on working with suppliers to identify how we can best support them in minimising food waste.
5.0 Food waste in the home
5.1 We recognise that this is an area of significant importance and, as signatories of Courtauld 2025, are committed helping customers reduce their food waste. This is an area we will be focussing more attention on going forward.
5.2 We include clear and helpful storage advice on our labels to help customers minimise waste. For example, our freezing advice is to freeze up to the use by date as opposed to freeze on purchase.
5.3 We also continue to develop innovative packaging to reduce food waste both in our branches and at home. For example, we changed the packaging on some of our potato lines to Modified Atmosphere Packaging.
5.4 We use our customer facing channels to encourage and advise our customers about food waste. This includes offering information on our website and leftover food recipe inspiration.
5.5 The food waste training package that we are soon to launch will also cover food waste in the home and the aim is to reach all of our 56,000 Partners to help them reduce their household food waste.
September 2016
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