Tesco to trial giving expiring meals away to customers | EUROtoday

Tesco is to start a trial giving expiring meals to prospects without spending a dime on the finish of the day because it tries to chop meals waste.

The grocery store will give away some already discounted “yellow sticker” gadgets after 21:30 in a few of its smaller Express shops in coming months.

Tesco already donates expiring meals to charities and foodbanks. It says it’s taking this step to attempt to meet its purpose to halve meals waste in a decade.

The firm nevertheless mentioned that the expiring meals could be supplied free to charities and store employees earlier than prospects might take it.

A spokesman mentioned the trial would start in a small variety of its Express shops within the UK. The places haven’t been specified, nor the beginning date.

“This trial will allow customers to take any remaining yellow-stickered items for free at the end of the day, after they have first been offered to charities and colleagues,” they added.

Tesco is Britain’s largest grocery store chain, with a 27.8% market share. It has 3,700 UK shops and about 750 extra overseas.

All main grocery store chains have partnerships to ship surplus meals to meals banks and group teams and supply steep reductions on expiring meals.

But Tesco’s trial seems to be the primary direct-to-customer coverage within the UK.

The agency has a goal to chop its meals waste by 50% this yr, as a part of its net-zero emissions push.

Up till February final yr it had claimed to have lower meals waste by 45% within the 5 years since 2017.

However, it was was compelled to appropriate that determine to 18% after it reported a contractor had been utilizing among the waste to generate gasoline that was burnt for power.

Inflation and the rising price of dwelling means meals staples similar to meat, eggs, butter and cereals are costlier than a yr in the past, whereas households are additionally dealing with increased power and water payments later this yr.

More than seven million individuals, or 11% of the UK inhabitants, had been in “food insecure households” in 2022/2023, a rise of two million from the earlier yr, information from the Department for Work and Pensions exhibits.

Many extra individuals have additionally turned to meals banks in current occasions. The Trussell Trust meals financial institution has reported greater than 1.4 million new customers up to now two years.

Tesco’s most up-to-date gross sales figures in January had been sturdy on the again of what it known as its “biggest ever Christmas” and the best share of the grocery market since 2016.

It reported UK and Ireland like-for-like gross sales, excluding gas and VAT, had been up 3.7% over the six weeks to 4 January and there was report buying and selling within the week earlier than Christmas.

The Tesco share worth was marginally down 0.5% on Thursday.