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Below is the first-ever league table ranking the top 10 supermarkets according to the proportion of surplus food they donate to charity for human consumption. It has taken months of probing and clarifying to get the raw data from the supermarkets and is the most forensic picture of retail food waste ever published in the UK.

Not only has Sainsbury’s released its UK-wide food waste data for the first time, three years after Tesco, but eight of the top 10 supermarkets responded to our survey by disclosing UK-wide food donation data that most have never put into the public domain.

For the first time we can reveal and compare the tonnage of surplus food they have donated to charities as well as how many — or rather how few — of their London stores have set up food donation partnerships with charities. The results make fascinating reading. They show Sainsbury’s leading the way, with 7.6 per cent of its surplus food donated to charities, followed by Tesco on 4.5 per cent and Waitrose and Asda on 3.3 per cent. Viewed through a different lens — the number of London stores that have forged food donation partnerships with charities — Sainsbury’s again sets the pace with a 57 per cent success rate, followed by Marks & Spencer on 50 per cent. Tesco’s ambitious roll-out plans will see sharp increases from its current base of 11 per cent.

The question arises: what is a reasonable food donation target? Wrap says that taking into account spoilage, 55 per cent of surplus food is “practically avoidable” and could be donated to charities for human consumption.

Our grading system has ranked the supermarkets based on tonnes of food they donate to charity as a proportion of their total surplus. Only Sainsbury’s and Tesco have supplied their actual surplus, so we have had to estimate the figure for others. We have done this by applying their market share to the 240,000-tonne surplus reported by Wrap for the retail sector as a whole.

Some supermarkets may quibble at this method, insisting they are less wasteful than their competitors, but unless they agree to reveal their actual surplus, estimates will have to suffice. Using Tesco as a control, our method stands up well — its 25.1 per cent food and drink market share yields an estimated food surplus of 60,240 tonnes, which turns out to be within 97 per cent accuracy of its actual food surplus.

We are indebted to the supermarkets on whose honesty this table relies. Their donation figures are self-reported and have not been independently verified. We hope that, like Tesco and Sainsbury’s, they will go further and respond to our call for full transparency.

Yet this is a valuable start. It reveals the state of play beyond the hype, in which even our top-ranked retailer, Sainsbury’s, wastes more than 90 per cent of its fresh surplus food by sending it to anaerobic digestion (to make methane gas and fertiliser) or to become animal feed. It also shows how patchy performance is, with Sainsbury’s 15 times more effective in donating its unsold food compared with seventh-ranked Aldi.

For people living in food poverty, this matters. Our survey shows that, taken together, the supermarkets are donating only 3.2 per cent — 7,806 tonnes — of the total retail food surplus. What a waste! Every 1,000 tonnes of surplus food diverted to charity amounts to another 2.4 million meals. Our supermarkets have made a start. They have a long way to go.

Stores ranked by percentage of surplus food they donate to charities

1) SAINSBURY’S 7.6%

Food surplus: 38,767 tonnes

Food donated: 2,935 tonnes

Wasted food: 35,832 tonnes (of which 8,922 tonnes sent to animal feed and 26,910 tonnes for anaerobic digestion)

London stores with food donation partnerships: 57% (208 of 365 stores)

They say: “We were co-founder of food redistribution charity FareShare in 1994 and have been working ever since to donate surplus food to charities, longer than any other supermarket. In the past year we sent 425 tonnes to FareShare and about 2,510 tonnes was donated from 931 of our 1,383 stores nationwide that have partnerships with charities, including 208 of our 365 London stores. Our aim is for all stores to have at least one food donation partner by 2020.”

2) TESCO 4.5%

Food surplus: 62,200 tonnes

Food donated: 2,800 tonnes

Wasted food: 59,400 tonnes

London stores with food donation partnerships: 11% (53 of 487)

They say: “We think 30,000 tonnes of our food waste is avoidable. Our commitment is for 100 per cent of that to be offered to charities by the end of 2017. We currently redistribute mainly from our depots via FareShare. We have also started a project called Community Food Connection to donate surplus food from stores. This uses an app, FareShare FoodCloud, to alert local charities to surplus food available from stores. We aim to roll this out to all London stores by the end of 2017.”

3) WAITROSE 3.3%

Food surplus: 12,960 tonnes (estimate based on 5.4% market share)

Food donated: 431 tonnes (estimate derived from reported £862,000 food donations and using a metric of £2,000 to one tonne)

Wasted food estimate: 12,529 tonnes

London stores with food donation partnerships: 20% (20 of 100)

They say: “We first began donating surplus food to charities in 2012. Our aim is to not send any edible food for anaerobic digestion. We are working hard to link up more branches with local charities and would like all our shops to have such a partnership. It is worth noting that many London branches report very little surplus.”

4) ASDA 3.3%

Food surplus: 33,120 tonnes (estimate based on 13.8% market share)

Food donated: 1,100 tonnes

Wasted food estimate: 32,020 tonnes

London stores with food donation partnerships: Not disclosed

They say: “We are committed to cutting food waste and use complex algorithms to mark down goods that are reduced to clear on the day. Since 2013, we have worked with FareShare to redistribute food over-delivered to our depots. We are the only retailer to hold a dedicated food waste conference with our suppliers. There is work to be done to reach our zero waste target.”

5) CO-OP 2.4%

Food surplus: 12,720 tonnes (estimate based on 5.3% market share)

Food donated: 309 tonnes

Wasted food estimate: 12,411 tonnes

London stores with food donation partnerships: Not disclosed

They say: “We have rolled out a programme to distribute surplus food from our nine distribution centres and anticipate donating 500 tonnes to FareShare in 2016 — more than one million meals. This is a big rise from 2014 when we donated just 84 tonnes. Our ambition is that no food fit for human consumption goes to waste and we are looking to roll out schemes across the 2,800 stores in our estate.”

6) MARKS AND SPENCER 1.6%

Food surplus: 10,320 tonnes (estimate based on 4.3% market share)

Food donated: 168 tonnes

Wasted food estimate: 10,152 tonnes

London stores with food donation partnerships: 50% (69 of 139)

They say: “Since October 2015 we have been rolling out our unsold food redistribution scheme and of 139 owned and franchised stores in London, 69 now donate food to 43 charity partners. We are also piloting a project that will allow us to freeze chilled prepared meals nearing their use-by date and so vastly expand the type of food we donate. We work with Neighbourly.com, a network that connects community projects to our stores. We have seen good results with unsold food donated rising from 60 tonnes in 2014/15 to 168 tonnes in 2015/16. This is set to continue as more stores come on stream.”

7) ALDI 0.5%

Food surplus: 13,440 tonnes (estimate based on 5.6% market share)

Food donated: 63 tonnes

Wasted food estimate: 13,377 tonnes

London stores with food donation partnerships: Not tracked

They say: “We have two regional distribution centres from which last year we donated the equivalent of 149,000 meals to FareShare, a rise of 94% in the last three years. At least two of our 28 London stores have ad hoc relationships with charities but at the moment this is at the whim of individual stores and is not centrally co-ordinated. This is an area we need to improve and we are considering a more integrated approach.”

8) MORRISONS Not disclosed

Food surplus: 24,720 tonnes (estimate based on 10.3% market share)

Food donated: Not disclosed

Wasted food: Unknown

London stores with food donation partnerships: Not disclosed

They say: “Last summer we launched a food redistribution trial in 100 stores across the North-East and have begun to roll this out, including to our 36 stores in London. To date we have donated one million products to charities, but we don’t measure tonnage. In London we partner with charity City Harvest who collect from some stores. A key commitment is to ensure edible food never goes to waste but we have a way to go.”

9) LIDL Not disclosed

Food surplus: 10,320 tonnes (estimate based on 4.3% market share)

Food donated: Not disclosed

Wasted food: Unknown

London stores with food donation partnerships: Not disclosed

They say: “We are rolling out pilot redistribution programmes from warehouses in a third of our regions, though not yet in London. Some edible food surpluses are being collected directly from the back of stores by charities such as The Salvation Army. We are very much at the start of a journey that will see us transform individual store-led activity into a centrally managed operation.”

10) ICELAND 0%

Food surplus: 2,080 tonnes (estimate based on one-third of its 2.6% market share, reduced due to its unique high frozen content)

Food donated: None

Wasted food estimate: 2,080 tonnes

London stores with food donation partnerships: 0% (none out of 205)

They say: “Our waste is well below the industry average reflecting our higher participation in frozen food. We have 205 stores within the M25 but do not have any partnerships with frontline charities for redistribution of surplus food, though we are looking to undertake a trial in the North-West. We only have small amounts of surplus food at store level. All our food waste currently goes to anaerobic digestion.”

Key calculations:

1) % food donated = (food donated / food surplus) x 100

2) Food surplus — food donated = wasted food

Note: UK grocer market shares are for food and drink only, from market research firm Kantar Worldpanel.

WHAT CAN YOU DO?

Take this letter to YOUR local food supplier asking: Are you donating your unsold surplus to charity? Fill in the name of your food supplier and sign the letter.