Sainsbury’s is claiming to have become the first UK supermarket to appoint a community resources manager to co-ordinate policy on food donation.
The company has appointed Martin Bowden, a former store manager, to oversee a long-term plan to involve all Sainsbury’s 423 stores in food donation programmes. Around 112 Sainsbury’s branches currently give some food to local charities.
‘This makes sense not only from an environmental but from a business point of view since the links that are made with local charities play an important part in involving the company in communities local to its stores,’ said Bowden.
‘For a company to donate and recycle on a large scale, it has to be one person’s responsibility. Most companies throw everything away because that is the quickest and easiest solution’, he added.
Sainsbury’s began a food donation programme with the charity which provides food and shelter for homeless people, Crisis, in London during 1997, and has expanded it to cover five other cities in the UK.
The London operation provides seven tonnes of food, or 10,000 meals, to homeless people in the capital each week.
The supermarket chain has reduced the amount of food it throws away from 23 per cent to 10 per cent over the past six years through various waste management methods.
A one-year trial begins in the Oxford area this month in which 26 stores will send out-of-date fruit and vegetables to nearby organic farms for composting. A Sainsbury’s spokeswoman said the idea could be taken up by stores nationwide if the trials were successful.