The foodservice industry faces ‘tough sustainability challenges’ due to an increasing global demand for food, greater land use, and food poverty, Bidfood CEO Andrew Selley has warned.
Selley said the industry ‘can’t tackle these issues unilaterally’ and that there needed to be ‘collaboration across the supply chain to make any headway’.
Writing in Bidfood’s latest sustainability report, he said: ’The foodservice industry faces a number of tough sustainability challenges with increasing global demand for food, water and energy, greater land use and food poverty.
‘We can only make progress if we’re all on the same page, working together through leadership and industry partnerships.’
The wholesaler’s report revealed the company sent only 0.6% of its waste to landfill by the end of June 2017, with a target set at zero.
Over the year, 5,358 tonnes of waste was recycled, incinerated, or was used at recovery facilities.
Improvements in fuel consumption, refrigeration gas loss management, and decreased electricity use, meant Bidfood reduced carbon emissions by 15.9% of a target of 2.5%.
The report also revealed the company harvested or recycled 12.3 million litres of water as it reduced its mains supply consumption by 9% to 70.8 million litres for the year.
Bidfood head of sustainability Shirley Duncalf said: “This has been far more than an internal exercise - we’ve been engaging with other like-minded partners to drive progress on a number of fronts.”
In 2016, Bidfood signed Wrap’s Courtauld 2025 agreement pledging to make food and drink consumption more sustainable.
The voluntary agreement commits organisations to collectively cut waste and greenhouse gas emissions associated with food and drink by at least one fifth a person by 2025.
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