Mar 14, 2016 08:18 AM EDT
Tesco to Donate Unsold Food to Charities

This year UK's supermarket giant, Tesco, finalized a deal to donate unsold food to charity to help lessen the global problem of food wastage.

According to news reports, Tesco intends to work with as much as 5,000 charities. Their plan is to totally eradicate food wastage with their stores for next year.

In 2015, a study conducted by UK-based Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP) estimated that one-third of food goes to waste. It has been a global problem in every country with a global cost of $400 billion per year.

In their attempt to lesson economic loss due to food wastage, Tesco extended their mission to benefit the less fortunate and their affiliate charities.  Inquisitr quoted Tesco chief executive Dave Lewis saying "We believe no food that could be eaten should be wasted. That's why we have committed that no surplus food should go to waste from our stores. We know it's an issue our customers really care about, and wherever there's surplus food at Tesco stores, we're committed to donating it to local charities so we can help feed people in need. But we know the challenge is bigger than this and that's why we've made a farm to fork commitment to reduce food waste upstream with our suppliers and in our own operations and downstream in our customers' own homes."

Tesco has been actively participating in various projects such as the "Farm to Fork" initiative. According to the "Tesco Eat Happy Project," they wanted to get the children involved and interested in how and where their food came from. However, they also believe the "Farm to Fork" initiative is not enough.  Their initial efforts yield about 50,000 meals and now wishes to extend it to all of their stores and to benefit more charities.

Tesco is set to collaborate with FareShare. Quoting FareShare chief executive Lindsay Boswell,

"We are delighted to be offering our store level solution in partnership with Tesco who are demonstrating real leadership in tackling food surplus. FareShare FoodCloud is a natural extension of our work together which has already provided nine million meals to help feed vulnerable people."

It is environmentally and economically beneficial to eradicate food waste worldwide, and aside from Tesco, more and more businesses and countries and pledging their own initiatives to help the cause and save tons of food which, Tesco proved, can be beneficial to people in need.

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