Our Position Statements
BACKGROUND
It has been estimated that 1.3 billion tonnes of food go to waste globally each year – around a third of all food produced. This is costing the global economy an estimated one trillion dollars annually (UN FAO). Not only is the food going to waste, but the resources used to produce the food are being wasted too.
According to the WWF’s Food Loss and Waste: Facts and Futures report (2017), approximately 10 million out of the 31 million tonnes of food produced in South Africa is wasted each year. With food security being such a key priority for South Africa, it is a significant problem that so much food is going to waste.
OUR COMMITMENT
As part of our Good Business Journey, we are committed to finding ways to reduce food waste and promote food security. This includes, but is not limited to, our surplus food programme in stores and across our supply chain – from our farms and factories – working in partnership with our suppliers.
We adopt the food waste utilisation hierarchy, which prioritises food utilisation and food waste avoidance or reduction in the first instance, and secondly the redistribution of surplus food for human consumption. Our goal is to ensure that no edible food should end up in a landfill.
Sustainable Farming
Our preference is to avoid the use of GMOs in Woolworths-branded foods. We are continuously investigating sustainable and commercially viable alternatives, and remain committed to reducing the number of products that contain ingredients from GM crop sources. As from 30 June 2019, 100% of Woolworths’ private label food products and pet food have been non-GMO.
See Woolworths’ GMO position statement
Animal Welfare
We believe it is our ethical obligation to ensure that our suppliers treat all the animals in our supply chain with respect and in the most humane way possible. We believe animals should have lives worth living.
Surplus Food
On an on-going basis, Woolworths donates surplus food which would otherwise go to landfill from each of our stores to more than 1000 charities annually. The surplus food is Woolworths’ product that is past its “Sell By” date but before its “Use By” date.
We also offer discounts in-store to customers on selected products, such as meat, on their “Sell By” date.
Packaging
Packaging plays an important role in combatting food waste by ensuring that our food is kept sufficiently protected, safe and fresh – from farm to shelf. This helps to maintain shelf-life and thereby minimise avoidable food waste.
We constantly challenge our packaging solutions to ensure they are fit-for-purpose and ensure maximum shelf-life, without compromising product quality and safety
On-pack Labelling and Customer Guidance
In addition to information on food nutritional content, we provide clear guidance on the preparation, cooking and storage of the private-label food products we sell.
Woolworths pioneered the practice of date marking (“Sell By” and “Best Before” or “Use By” dates) in South Africa, the latter two giving customers an indication of when food would be at its best, and when the product should be used by from a food-safety perspective.
Where possible, we also indicate on-pack recommended freezing instructions to assist customers in avoiding food waste.
Research
We recognise that much of the waste we generate as a business does not happen in our own operations, but rather in our customers’ homes and in the supply chain. For this reason, we are taking steps to understand the life cycle of various products such as beef and milk to better understand where we can reduce this impact. We are also gaining a clearer understanding of where the hotspots for food waste are across our supply chain, so that we can tackle these areas more effectively.
As part of our partnership with the World Wide Fund for Nature South Africa (WWF-SA), Woolworths conducted a food waste scoping study, as well as a second phase of research – zoning in on tracking food loss and the waste of spinach throughout the entire supply chain – from farm to customers’ homes. This study included testing and trialing the World Resources Institute’s (WRI) Food Loss and Waste protocol in the Woolworths supply chain with both processed food and fresh produce suppliers, and was possibly the first in the world where a retailer investigated one product with multiple stock-keeping units (SKUs), over 50 in the case of spinach.
TRANSPARENCY AND REPORTING
Woolworths will remain transparent about our progress on initiatives supporting food security and a reduction in food waste. We will report on our progress on an annual basis in our Good Business Journey Report, available on the Woolworths Holdings Limited website.
As a signatory of the South African Food Waste Voluntary Agreement (VA), Woolworths is committed to halving food waste to landfill by 2030, aligned to Sustainable Development Goal 12.3. Woolworths is also encouraging suppliers to sign and commit to the VA.
Back to our Good Business Journey
Updated: January 2021