Lidl Ireland Commits to Further Reduce Food Waste as Part of Food Waste Charter

29th June 2023: Lidl Ireland, along with Minister for Agricultural, Food and Marine and Minister of State at the Department of Environment, Climate and Communications, has today committed to the new Food Waste Forum Charter as part of the Retail Action Group for Food Waste. This charter sees Lidl commit to further reduce food waste through the distribution of surplus food. As part of the Food Waste Charter, Lidl had pledged to build awareness and understanding of food waste and its issues as well as promote innovative food waste prevention solutions. 

Since originally signing the Food Waste Charter in 2018, Lidl has redistributed more than 4 million meals to local food banks through their long-standing partnership with FoodCloud. Earlier this year, Lidl launched innovative Waste Not fruit and vegetable boxes to help combat food waste and offer customers even more value. The boxes, priced at just €3 for 5kg, are made up of loose fruit and vegetables from multipacks where other items in the packs may have been slightly damaged. The items placed in these innovative boxes are still perfectly good to eat. Since February, Lidl has sold more than 52,000 boxes, saving an estimated 260,000kg of fruit and vegetables from going to waste.

 J.P. Scally, Chief Executive Officer at Lidl Ireland & Northern Ireland commented: “We are delighted to be working closely with the Environmental Protection Agency, Minister McConalogue, Minister Smyth and The Retail Action Group for Food Waste. We are proud to continue our commitment to reducing food waste in the Irish retail sector and are pleased to have a tangible result of our efforts in reaching the milestone of 4 million meals redistributed to local food banks earlier this year. At Lidl, we have ambitious food waste targets and as we look to the future, we are committed to building on this progress and challenging ourselves to find innovative ways to further reduce food waste across the sector, both in our own operations and encouraging our suppliers, partners and customers to do so also.” 

ENDS