Business initiative of the year

With huge volumes of perfectly good food being chucked away when shipments were classed as ‘distressed’ (as a result of poor temperature control, damaged pallets or labelling errors), Oakland International came up with a solution that saved goods that were in perfectly good condition - which turned out to be the majority.

The results from its distressed load service, a value-added for clients that individually inspects contaminated loads and salvages as much as possible, have been staggering, with 90% of contents saved from 192 loads inspected in 2015 - saving huge amounts of cash for businesses and preventing 1,800 tonnes of food from being wasted. The 10% left isn’t wasted either. Products too damaged to be sold but still edible are de-branded and donated to prisons, charities or The Oakland Foundation’s Food Bank. And the remainder goes to AD plants to be turned into energy.