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Your Business is Food

Do you know what food waste is costing your business? Research tells us that food manufacturers across the UK waste almost 1 million tonnes* of food a year costing some £1.2 bn. This means as a business you could stand to save an average of £1200 for every tonne of food waste prevented on site.

Your Business is Food is a new campaign developed by WRAP and supported and delivered by FDF and other partners to help food manufacturing businesses make financial savings by reducing food waste. Through use of a few simple tools and other resources it is designed to help companies boost profits in ways that shouldn’t cost the Earth or be too time consuming.

Food waste can be generated across all stages of manufacturing operations. From purchasing and processing to storage and transport. Yet many manufacturers underestimate just how much waste is costing them. It’s not only food that’s thrown away, but the money spent on ingredients, packaging, energy, water and labour to manufacture it. These costs can be anywhere between five and twenty times the cost of disposal. If you would like to explore the business case for reducing your food waste further, please see the business case flyer.

By using the Your Business is Food resource materials, you can reduce food thrown away and save money.

The Benefits:

  • Save money on purchasing and waste disposal
  • Less food thrown away means more profit and reduced costs
  • Reducing food waste benefits the environment and your company’s reputation

Take action - Reducing food waste is easier than you might think

  • Step 1: Review the food you throw away
  • Step 2: Make an action plan
  • Step 3: Keep it going!

Several resources are available for download from this page:

Starter Guide This guide for manufacturers will walk you through the three first steps to reducing food waste
Walk Around Checklist This will guide you through the process of tracking food waste
Food Waste Review Sheet
Food Waste Review Cost Calculator (Excel)		 These two can be used with the Checklist to guide you through the tracking process and start to attach a cost to any food waste– pick the one that is easiest for your business
IDG Waste Identification Matrix (Excel) This can be used to log both the amount and cost of wasted food by product area, product, location, or time period
Action Plan template This template will help you put together an action plan to implement and start saving your business money
Case studies: Freshtime, Paterson Arran These one-page case studies show how companies have measured and reduced their food waste, saving the business money

 

To help us establish where members are starting on the current journey and thereby the impact of the campaign, we have created a short survey which we would be grateful if you could complete. All such individual feedback will be treated confidentially and only aggregated trends will be reported when discussing the campaign.

* Figure correct at the time of launch. WRAP restated food waste figures in 2018. Further information »


Last reviewed: 11 Dec 2018