It’s time to join the ‘zero waste’ team.
Over the past couple of years we've become increasingly aware of how important it is to reduce waste - not just because it saves us money, but so we can protect our environment too.
Following a trial last year, budget supermarket Lidl has announced that it's bringing its Too Good to Waste fruit and vegetable boxes to all of its stores in England, Scotland and Wales.
Each box costs just £1.50 and contains around 5kg of fruit and vegetables that have become slightly damaged, discoloured or deteriorated, but are still perfectly good to eat.
They’re picked from store shelves and put together daily by Lidl’s in-store Freshness Specialists. You can pick one up any time before noon. At this point, any leftover boxes will be distributed to local good causes through Lidl’s Feed it Back programme.
More than 50,000 boxes were sold during the Lidl trial, preventing 250 tonnes of food from going to waste. Lidl estimates that the national rollout could save thousands of tonnes of fresh produce from going to waste each year.
‘The positive feedback that we have received off the back of our trial has been incredible,’ said Lidl GB’s CEO Christian Härtnagel. ‘From our colleagues who are showing so much passion for them, to our customers who were getting in touch from the get go asking where they could get one. We’re therefore really excited to be rolling the boxes out to all of our stores nationwide, and we’re really pleased to see that it’s also starting to be adopted by other supermarkets.’
And getting good food at an even more affordable price is a bonus too, of course. ‘The really brilliant thing about this initiative is that it’s also helping our customers make even more savings,’ Christian added. ‘It’s a great example of how we can fulfil our mission to make good, healthy food more affordable and accessible, whilst acting sustainably.’
Lidl has committed to slashing its food waste by 25 per cent per store by 2020.
