Premier Foods and FareShare have unveiled a new long-term partnership aimed at tackling food waste and supporting those in food poverty
As part of the tie-up, which will span five years, Premier Foods will provide food donations directly to the FareShare, which will be redistributed to nearly 9,500 charities and community groups in its network. Premier Foods will also provide funding to enable FareShare to redistribute food across its network of 31 warehouses across the UK.
The move builds on Premier Foods’ efforts to tackle food waste, which includes last year doubling the amount of food redistributed for human consumption to 750 tonnes and achieving zero waste to landfill status since 2016. Drawing on FareShare’s expertise, Premier Foods is planning a further review of 10 of its manufacturing sites to identify and unlock new ways to reduce food waste even further in its own operations and encourage suppliers and consumers to do the same.
Last month, the company launched a brand new food waste reduction campaign and microsite, ‘Fresh take on food waste’, which allows households to input leftover ingredients in their fridge and generate a tailored recipe incorporating them and their chosen cooking sauce.
Premier Foods will also work in partnership with retailers and FareShare to co-design creative marketing campaigns such as the Tesco ‘Win a Dinner Give a Dinner campaign’ – an on-pack competition on selected lines of Oxo, Bisto, Paxo, Lloyd Grossman and Sharwood’s, giving consumers the chance to win £10 vouchers to purchase a ‘dinner’ for themselves and their family. For each competition winner, £10 was donated to FareShare, with winners also given the option to donate their £10 win to FareShare, in addition to Premier Foods’ matched donation. Launched in January 2022, this campaign delivered the equivalent of 180,000 meals to FareShare in nine months.
Alex Whitehouse, CEO of Premier Foods, commented: “Food poverty is an issue that impacts more than one in ten people in the UK. Yet, at the same time, over 2 million tonnes of edible food is wasted every year, the equivalent to 1.3 billion meals. As one of the UK’s leading food businesses, and home to some of the nation’s favourite brands, we know we have a key role to play in tackling these important, interlinked issues and believe we can make a real difference in the communities we operate in. That’s why back in 2017 we pledged to halve our food waste by 50% by 2030 and in the first year of the pandemic alone, we donated 600,000 meals to local communities.
“However, it’s now time to dial up our progress, which is why, last year, we reiterated our commitments and set bold targets to help provide food to those who need it most, volunteer our time and reduce the amount of food we send to waste. I’m delighted that, through this partnership with FareShare, a charity aligned to our purpose and ambitions in our Enriching Life Plan, we’re going to spend the next five years working together to do just that.”
