Industry partnerships to reduce food and drink waste
A series of new industry partnerships led by WRAP (Waste & Resources Action Programme) could considerably reduce food and drink product damage throughout the supply chain and improve product quality - by developing new category-specific innovations in manufacturing, packaging, storage, distribution and retail.
Commissioned as part of WRAP’s strategy to minimise food and drink waste, the new projects will research a range of solutions. If successful they will help reduce costs for businesses and consumers, improve quality and reduce environmental impact.
The research studies are being led by Adare, Campden BRI, East Malling Research, Giraffe Innovation, Amcor Flexibles and Premier Foods. ASDA, Co-operative, Sainsbury’s, Somerfield and Tesco are each involved with a project.
The findings are expected to generate a number of innovations at a category level, and reveal insights into consumer behaviour and drivers. These insights will be utilised in the Love Food Hate Waste campaign to help consumers save money by reducing waste.
They will also deliver significant benefits to businesses throughout the supply chain by boosting efficiency, reducing waste and greenhouse emissions as well as being able to better understand and respond to consumer needs.
Charlotte Henderson, Retail Supply Chain Programme Manager at WRAP, said: “This innovative research, which spans the entire supply chain through to the consumer, will reduce costs and waste for retailers and food manufacturers.
“We’ll be sharing these results with industry from late 2009 and throughout 2010 and we’re excited by the potential to deliver real change for the grocery sector, as well as helping consumers save money.”
Further details on this research are available in the project summaries. Businesses can also sign up to the WRAP retail e-newsletter at retail@wrap.org.uk to keep up to date with the latest news and research.
Editor's notes
About WRAP
- WRAP works in partnership to encourage and enable businesses and consumers to be more efficient in their use of materials and recycle more things more often. This helps to minimise landfill, reduce carbon emissions and improve our environment.
- Established as a not-for-profit company in 2000, WRAP is backed by government funding from England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
- Working in seven key areas (Construction, Retail, Manufacturing, Organics, Business Growth, Behavioural Change, and Local Authority Support), WRAP’s work focuses on market development and support to drive forward recycling and materials resource efficiency within these sectors, as well as wider communications and awareness activities including the multi-media national Recycle Now campaign for England.
- More information on all of WRAP's programmes can be found on www.wrap.org.uk