Sainsbury's surplus food helps the plants to grow

Sainsbury's has been trialling ways of turning supermarket food waste that cannot be donated to charity, into soil-improving compost, thus helping plants to grow, rather than sending the waste to landfill. Three different schemes have tested both the feasibility and viability of composting.

The first, a country scheme in Newbury, Berkshire in 2001 and 2002 worked with a local farmer to take store waste and proved that supermarket waste can be made into good soil improvement material. Unfortunately, although the scheme produced good compost, it would not have been viable financially to expand the scheme and it has now closed. The second project, using edge of town stores in east and southeast London started in 2001. It has been working successfully although more work is still to be done.

The latest venture, which started in November 2002, is in west London where 8 Sainsbury's supermarkets have linked with 6 Local Authorities who are trialling doorstep collection of food waste for composting. Sainsbury's is the only supermarket to be included in the trial. The trial is being conducted by London Remade and the Organic Resources Agency and was officially launched in June 2003.

Sainsbury's is very keen to use its experience to expand the composting of its store food waste. Changes in landfill tax presented in the last budget should mean that future composting schemes become viable for Local Authorities and others to run. Sainsbury's is leading the way in gaining experience on composting and is talking to a number of agencies about ways of taking its learnings forward to save sending waste to landfill and to use waste food for beneficial purposes and to save money on the waste bill.