Too Good To Go, a global leader in the fight against food waste, has released its latest Food Waste Gap Report, revealing insights into the challenge of food waste across the UK. The report, based on comprehensive research involving over 400 industry professionals and 1,000 UK consumers, explores the disconnect between growing awareness and effective action in addressing food waste.
Key findings from the Food Waste Gap Report:
Growing Awareness
The report shows a positive trend, with 68 per cent of food decision makers acknowledging an increased awareness of food waste over the past five years. This is an encouraging move given the scale of the food waste problem globally. As a society, food waste is costing nearly £22 billion per year in the UK alone. That’s 10.7 million tonnes of food going to waste and a quarter of all purchased food across the nation, so this increased awareness is a promising step in the right direction.
Prioritisation
Building on the encouraging findings that the awareness gap is beginning to close, the data reveals that food waste is also a high priority for food decision makers, rated in line with recycling and higher than avoiding plastic packaging, or reducing electricity usage. Similarly, almost two-thirds (65 per cent) of businesses have increased their prioritisation of food waste over the past five years.
It comes as no surprise that businesses have increased their prioritisation of food waste, when examining the significant financial loss it can cause. Nearly half (44 per cent) the businesses surveyed are reporting monthly net sales losses of 1-2.99 per cent due to food waste and nearly one in ten (nine per cent) businesses face losses between 3-4.99 per cent.
Barriers To Effective Action
Despite prioritising food waste more, just over a one-third (34 per cent) of businesses believe they are managing it effectively – meaning there is still a gap between business intentions and effective action. Many feel that they currently lack the right resources to effectively manage their food waste (24 per cent), others cite concerns around costs (28 per cent) and operational disruption (28 per cent).
While there has been progress in prioritisation of food waste, the need for further action is also driven by consumers. Food decision makers in UK households (82 per cent) feel businesses should be doing more to reduce food waste and 79 per cent state they are more likely to purchase from businesses with measures in place to reduce it.
“We recently launched the Food Waste Gap report at Too Good To Go’s Partner Connect event, which brought together leading businesses and decision-makers from across the industry, including Tesco, Starbucks, and Mitchells & Butlers,” said Sophie Trueman, Country Director UK&I. “Our findings underscore the urgent need for industry leaders to collaborate and share insights to bridge the gap between awareness and effective action in combating food waste and its environmental impact.
At Too Good To Go, we are committed to supporting these efforts by offering scalable solutions that can help businesses manage food waste more effectively. We believe that by working together, we can make real strides in reducing food waste. The issue is broad, and it requires a collective effort from industry, businesses, and consumers alike.”
Joel Tilmouth, Support Office Specialist – Fresh Trade Operations, Morrisons said: “As businesses, it is important for us to work together when it comes to establishing effective solutions to combat food waste. Reducing food waste is a real priority for us, and Too Good To Go’s Partner Connect event provided a great platform for us to collaborate with different sectors and share knowledge, so that we can develop better strategies and make a bigger impact when it comes to reducing food waste.”
Food waste accounts for 10 per cent of all human-caused greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. Fighting food waste is essential to solving the climate crisis, as it is named the number one solution to limit the temperature rise to just 2˚C by 2100 (Project Drawdown). Through its partnership with leading retailers in the UK, Too Good To Go contributes towards collective efforts to reduce food waste and its environmental impact, while offering its customers great value. Too Good To Go recently hit the milestone of 45 million meals saved in the UK alone.
