Food waste is always on our minds here at Better Food. Globally, it’s estimated that 17% of all the food produced is wasted. Yet, that doesn’t even include food wasted on farms or in the supply chain, which could bring the figure closer to one third.

We’re determined not to be part of this crushing statistic. Just think about the amount of energy and resource needed to grow and produce this food. On top of this, wasting food has a big part in affordability, the less food we waste, the more there is to go around and the cheaper it should be.

At Better Food, we have practices in place across all parts of the business to keep it to a minimum. The good news is that at the end of the financial year in 2021, our waste from stock was at its lowest for 5 years – less than 2%. As shopping patterns have changed with the lifting of lockdown restrictions, we’ve seen waste increase, just tipping over 2% later in the year. Our target is to bring waste back down to below 2% for 2022.

Here are three of our amazing food waste heroes!

Heart of BS13

It’s close to a year since we began working with the brilliant local charity Heart of BS13. Heart of BS13 is a social enterprise working to improve physical and mental health outcomes for people living in Hartcliffe and Withywood. You might have come across their delicious, homemade meals in our freezers. If not make a beeline to them, not only are they locally made and super-tasty, £5.50 from every main meal goes direct to the charity to help them in their mission to improve health and feed the community in BS13.

Back to food waste, when we visited Heart of BS13 to help out for the day last summer, we were amazed and just a little bit jealous of their composting. Heart of BS13 go to great efforts to compost all of their food waste on site, along with weeds and plat waste at their no dig market garden. This means that all of the goodness from this waste is given another life and helps to grow the next set at crops at the garden….a perfect cycle. We’re working closely with them to get our food waste into this loop!

Too Good To Go

Since 2020 we’ve worked with the Too Good To Go app which helps people buy and collect food that might otherwise go to waste – at a great price – so it gets eaten instead of wasted. You’ll find food from our cafés that’s delicious, but won’t be on sale the next day, almost every day. Download the app now and grab a bargain.

Food Cycle

In 2021, our proactive produce team established a relationship with our local FoodCycle group. Now, fruit and vegetables that don’t quite make the cut to be sold are collected weekly and turned into delicious meals to be served in the community.

Keep your eye out for more hints and tips on how to reduce your food waste later this month.