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Tesco and FareShare come together to share waste food with those in need

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By John McCarthy, Opinion Editor

June 4, 2015 | 3 min read

Tesco and FareShare FoodCloud are set to pilot a new UK scheme to cut down on food waste and feed society's most vulnerable people.

The UK supermarket estimates that it bins one per cent of its total food output in the UK each year, and is looking to redistribute the 30,000 tonnes of food to people in need.

In association with FareShare’s app, stores can broadcast how much surplus food they have at the end of each day that needs binned, which can be repurposed by charities.

Dave Lewis, Tesco chief executive, said: “No one wants to throw away food which could otherwise be eaten. We don’t throw away much food in our own operations but even the one per cent we do throw away amounts to 55,400 tonnes.

“To reduce this amount even further, we’ll be working in partnership with FareShare FoodCloud to ensure any food left unsold in our stores at the end of each day is given to local charities.

“This is potentially the biggest single step we’ve taken to cut food waste, and we hope it marks the start of eliminating the need to throw away edible food in our stores.”

Lindsay Boswell, FareShare chief executive, added: “FareShare already has a long standing partnership with Tesco and the development of the FareShare FoodCloud is a natural evolution of this.

“We understand that customers get angry when they see food being wasted in their local store. We do too and that is why we have spent 20 years developing our successful charity redistribution model.”

FareShare FoodCloud is already in place at Tesco stores in Ireland, and will now be piloted in ten Tesco stores around the UK, to aid homeless hostels, women’s refuges and breakfast clubs for disadvantaged children.

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