Premier Foods will provide food donations directly to FareShare, which will be redistributed to nearly 9,500 charities and community groups in its network. Premier Foods will also provide funding to enable FareShare to redistribute food across its network of 31 warehouses across the UK.
The partnership will play a key role in delivering Premier Foods’ goals of donating 1 million meals and 1,000 volunteering days per year, while halving its food waste by 2030. Since 2020, Premier Foods has provided and delivered the equivalent of over 1.3 million meals to FareShare.
Alex Whitehouse, chief executive of Premier Foods, said: “Food poverty is an issue that impacts more than one in ten people in the UK. Yet, at the same time, over 2 million tonnes of edible food is wasted every year, the equivalent to 1.3 billion meals.
“As one of the UK’s leading food businesses, and home to some of the nation’s favourite brands, we know we have a key role to play in tackling these important, interlinked issues and believe we can make a real difference in the communities we operate in. That’s why back in 2017 we pledged to halve our food waste by 50% by 2030 and in the first year of the pandemic alone, we donated 600,000 meals to local communities.”
Currently, 9.5 million tonnes of food is wasted across the food industry every year in the UK. According to climate action NGO WRAP, the highest proportion comes from the home with 4.5 million tonnes of edible food going to waste each year, which equates to a UK household throwing away on average eight meals a week.
Lindsay Boswell, chief executive of FareShare, added: “We’re incredibly grateful to be partnering with Premier Foods to help achieve their commitments to deliver the equivalent of 1 million meals and 1,000 volunteering days a year, which will help us get good-to-eat, surplus food, that may otherwise go to waste, to our network of nearly 9,500 charities across the UK.
“Alongside this, we’re honoured to be part of their ambitions to halve the company’s food waste by 2030, which aligns perfectly with our mission to tackle food waste and hunger in the UK.”