When Tesco published food waste data in October 2013, it wasn't surprised by the outcry in the media. The supermarket chain knew that revealing the amount of food it discarded would open it up to public scrutiny, but understood that was the price it had to pay to trigger a debate about an urgent global challenge.
Publishing unflattering information about its operations was a bold move, but it paid off.
Headlines in the Daily Mail and the Times and widespread coverage on the BBC expressed shock at the 28,500 tonnes of food wasted in Tesco's stores and distribution centres in the first six months of the year.
Once the story was no longer in the headlines, however, the retailer's aim in being the first supermarket chain to publish food waste figures started to become clear: the debate about food waste was ignited, and the media's surprise developed into a serious commentary on how to tackle the issue.
Leading food waste campaigners, such as the Waste and Resources Action programme (Wrap), the poverty charity Fareshare, Feeding the 5,000, Waste Watch and Oxfam, joined in. As they pointed out, this wasn't just an issue for Tesco but for the retail industry as a whole.
Since its announcement, other retailers, including the UK's biggest grocers, have vowed to follow Tesco's lead and work with the British Retail Consortium to reveal how much food they waste each year.
Becoming a global leader in the fight against food waste is one of the ambitions set out in Tesco's new corporate responsibility strategy, launched in May 2013 with the slogan "We use our scale for good."
The retailer recognises that a company of its size, with 50 million customers and thousands of suppliers around the world, has a significant part to play in helping to address some of the most pressing issues facing society, including sustainability, health and employability.
Wasted food is a massive global problem, costing producers and customers about £460bn a year. It's estimated that about a third of all food grown, worldwide, could be wasted – primarily in agriculture, in the supply chain and by customers. Every bag of food thrown out puts extra strain on the environment at a time when the food system as a whole is coming under increasing pressure through growing demand. That's why Tesco decided to take a lead in reducing the amount of food we throw away each year.
By talking to food waste campaigners and other experts in the field, the supermarket chain learned that one of the key hurdles to dealing with the issue is a lack of clarity about how much food is wasted and where. It decided that one of the most helpful things it could do was to shine a light on the amount of food discarded by its own stores and distribution centres. Campaigners welcomed Tesco's transparency.
The Guardian judges agreed, describing the retailer's admission about its own food waste as "a brave move, which showed [its] boldness as a brand". They thought it was a great example of an organisation using its scale for good, and applauded the increased transparency the move is bringing about in the wider industry.
Coming clean about food waste is the only way those striving to reduce the waste mountain can see where the hotspots are and work out what to do about it. At the same time, Tesco released farm-to-fork profiles for five of its most popular products, setting out individual action plans to reduce waste in each product. This included a promise to end multi-buy offers on large bags of salad, one of the biggest waste culprits with about 40% thrown out in the stores or by customers.
The company is also sending surplus bran from bread milling to be used as animal feed, and donating millions of surplus meals a year to Fareshare.
To calculate how much food it wasted, Tesco worked with Wrap. Its work is also consistent with national and international campaigns and programmes run by bodies such as the United Nations, European Union, Wrap and the World Resources Institute.
In admitting its food waste figures, Tesco set out to raise awareness of the issue, spark national debate and encourage industry-wide change. In those terms the move has been a success. The retailer is committed to working with others to find ways to tackle the challenge, and will continue to campaign on the issue, make public the amount of food it wastes, and set up more plans to reduce waste for each product.
Lorna Thorpe is part of the wordworks network.
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