FDBusiness.com

Tesco customers can benefit from salads and citrus fruit that will stay fresh for up to two extra days, thanks to an industry leading initiative by the UK supermarket group. Some of the most popular fruit and vegetables will stay fresher for longer as a result of Tesco cutting out a food packing stage in the journey from farm to fork.

Among the foods that are gaining extra freshness from the initiative include some of the most popular items in the produce aisle, including: citrus fruit, lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, broccoli and celery.

According to the UK’s Waste and Resources Reduction Action Programme (WRAP), seven million tonnes of food is thrown away each year by British households, costing the average family with children £700.

Tesco Group Food Commercial Director Matt Simister says: “For millions of our customers this move will mean having up to an extra two days in which to enjoy some of the most popular fruit and vegetables. The extra days of freshness will particularly benefit customers who are pressed for time and will mean they are less likely to throw away food. The move is part of our efforts to not only help busy families plan ahead but also to help customers reduce waste at home too.”

As part of its ongoing programme to tackle food waste Tesco looked at its supply chain to identify ways of working directly with producers to speed up the process by which freshly picked produce arrives in store. It found that as a result of advancements in packing and storage it was now possible to ship produce directly from European suppliers to Tesco stores, cutting the amount of time spent in transit which means getting produce to customers faster, and therefore fresher.

Dr Richard Swannell, Director Sustainable Food Systems at WRAP, says: “WRAP’s Product Life research identified a number of simple and safe ways to make changes throughout the supply chain to pass on more product life to shoppers. Giving people more time to eat the foods they buy reduces the risk of food being wasted. Our report estimates some 250,000 tonnes of food waste could be prevented by a one day increase in product life – food wasted by households and by the supply chain. Preventing this volume of waste means UK shoppers have a potential shared saving of up to £500 million a year.”