Tesco: Less Food Waste and Pollutant Emission

If we do not change our lifestyles, food will be responsible for the largest share of emissions by 2030. Every year, 931 million tons of food waste is generated by households, retailers and other food processes. It is therefore not surprising that 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions are caused by food ending up in landfills, a press release by the reatil chain Tesco says.

Tesco is committed to tackling food waste from farm to fork, and in 2017 was the first retailer in Central Europe to publish a report on the amount of food waste it generates. Since then, the supermarket chain has reduced its food waste in Hungary by 68 percent, contributing 89,590 tons to reducing emissions.

"The combined impact of climate change and the coronavirus epidemic makes the fight against food waste even more urgent. Our latest data shows that since the 2016/17 financial year, we have reduced the amount of food waste generated by our operations by 68%. This represents a reduction of around 28,000 tons of food saved from being thrown away through our years of work to reduce and donate surplus food, which continued throughout the outbreak thanks to our staff. Over 90% of Tesco stores nationwide donate leftover food to people in need on a daily basis. This has enabled us to donate 83% of the surplus food available for human consumption to charity, bringing us closer to our goal of ensuring that no bite of food is wasted at Tesco," Zsolt Pálinkás, CEO of Tesco-Global Cp. Ltd. said.