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Nature

Cut waste

Over a billion tons of food are thrown away each year worldwide. This includes produce that never leaves the farm, is damaged in transport and distribution, or thrown away in kitchens. And it’s not just the food that gets wasted – so do all the resources such as energy and water needed to grow, manufacture and transport it. That’s why it’s so important to reduce food waste to reduce the environmental, social and financial impact. Find out more about our mission to cut food waste below.

Improving our supply chain

Reporting and targeting

Food waste can occur at each stage of the supply chain, from processing to shipping to our customers. We identified the key contributions to food waste and designed a toolkit of proven best practices to target those losses; in doing so we developed the Battle Against Waste program. 

The program focuses on assessing waste at each stage in the end-to-end supply chain, engaging with stakeholders, suppliers and external partners with our collective aim to reduce food waste. Each production site is tracked by a robust reporting system and has financial and environmental targets to optimise processes and reduce waste.

Redistributing and recovering food with communities

Redistributing surplus food

Unfortunately, despite the volume of food wasted in the world, many still go hungry. Our partnership with the Global Foodbanking Network (GFN) facilitates redistribution and recovery of surplus products throughout our global networks, getting food that would otherwise be wasted to the communities that need it most.

From ‘use by’ to ‘best before’

Date labelling

We’re changing the labels on our essential dairy and plant-based products to help reduce food waste in households. Wherever it is safe to do so, we’re replacing the quality label ‘use by’ with the sensory label ‘best before’ and encouraging consumers to use their senses to check the food is still good to consume. This transition is being supported by educational campaigns in partnership with Too Good To Go.

Joining together for a bigger impact

Partners for impact

The more people with the same mission, the bigger the impact. We’re part of coalitions like Friends of Champions 12.3 - a group of leading policymakers and businesses dedicated to achieving the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) of halving food waste worldwide by 2030.

We’re also part of the 10X20X30 initiative and the Consumer Goods Food Waste Coalition of Action.

Food waste: a global concern

While an estimated 735 million people go hungry globally, food loss and waste generate 8 to 10 percent of GHGs and is a methane hotspot." UN 2024 Food Loss and Waste Reduction | United Nations

-50%

By 2030 we aim to halve food waste ratio compared to 2020 levels in line with the UN's Sustainable Development Goal 12.3

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