Thanks to the dedicated work of colleagues, Tesco has reduced its food waste by 73 percent

By: Trademagazin Date: 2025. 06. 17. 11:49

Tesco has recently published its ninth food waste report, reporting a 73 percent reduction in waste compared to the base year. The company has also increased the amount of food donated to those in need by 7 percent since the 2016/17 financial year, in which the store colleagues who operate the food rescue program play a huge role. With their help, unsold but still suitable for human consumption food reaches children in difficult situations, single mothers, the elderly, the disabled and the homeless every day. In recognition of their work, the 20 colleagues who achieved the most outstanding results were also able to receive the “Food Rescue Hero” award at the event held on June 16th, presenting the results of the current report.

According to data from the National Food Chain Safety Office, 62 kilograms of food waste is generated per capita in Hungarian households every year. Of this, 25.8 kilograms could be prevented, i.e. wasted, which means a loss of 380 billion forints for the population. This amount amounts to 40 thousand forints per capita annually. Meanwhile, many thousands of adults and children in our country do not have enough food.

Even more is wasted along the food chain from farm to fork, which is why Tesco has been working to reduce food waste for many years. The company has been publishing its results every year since the 2016/17 financial year to identify the most critical areas and eliminate problem points using the detailed data in the report. With the help of its good practices, it halved its food waste in 2020, thus meeting the UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 12.3 ahead of schedule, which is to halve food waste by 2030.

According to the latest figures, Tesco has reduced food waste by 55 percent compared to the base year, including through traffic forecasting and ordering processes or price discounts on products with a close expiration date. During the same period, the supermarket chain generated 73 percent less food waste.

“If we cannot sell the food, we primarily give it to charities and local communities. The rest is donated to animal shelters or used in a biogas plant. Only the remaining products are then sent to landfill. Our colleagues are the driving force behind our food rescue program, which has been in operation since 2014. Their dedicated work ensures that we can donate food (vegetables, fruit, bakery products, dairy products, dry goods, etc.) from more than 90 percent of our stores that is no longer saleable but still suitable for human consumption to people in need living near our stores. Thanks to their dedicated and enthusiastic work, we managed to save more than 65 percent of the surplus food suitable for consumption in one year, i.e. 1,200 truckloads of food, which means nearly 8.7 million portions of food”

– emphasizes the importance of the food rescue program Nóra Hevesi, Head of Communications at Tesco-Global Zrt.