Lidl Ireland launches nationwide roll out of ‘Waste Not’ fruit and veg boxes
New food waste initiative set to save more than 950,000kg of food waste per year
Print16 February 2023
Lidl Ireland has launched a new initiative to help reduce food waste in the form of ‘Waste Not Fruit and Veg boxes’.
The boxes, priced at just €3, will contain at least 5kg of mixed fruit and vegetables from the store shelves. These will have come from multi-packs where some product has become slightly damaged and removed, and the remaining items which are perfectly good to eat are then used to make up the Waste Not boxes.
Following a successful trial in seven stores, Lidl Ireland will roll out the Waste Not boxes to its network of 176 stores nationwide.
Throughout the ongoing trial period, which launched in September 2022, more than 3,700 Waste Not boxes were sold preventing over 18,500kg of food going to waste and Lidl estimates that the nationwide rollout will save a further 950,000kg of food waste per year.
The approximate full retail value of the produce in the boxes is €6-€8. Lidl states the boxes are picked and packed daily by in-store ‘Green Leaders’, who conduct freshness checks on fresh produce four times a day.
Boxes will be available to customers daily until stocks last every day, at which point, any leftover boxes are given to local good causes through Lidl’s surplus food redistribution partnership with FoodCloud.
The initiative was welcomed by Minister of State with responsibility for Public Procurement, eGovernment and Circular Economy, Ossian Smyth, who pointed out that “Ireland generated over 770,000 tonnes of food waste in 2020 with vegetables the most wasted food type in supermarkets, followed by fruit.”
Robert Ryan, chief operating officer, Lidl Ireland, added that the initiative had “received overwhelmingly positive feedback from our trial, and we know the benefits from this will be felt across the board – both with our customers who can save a bit more on their weekly shop, and for the planet, in helping to combat a big issue of fresh food going to waste”.
Lidl Ireland has been working with FoodCloud since 2017 and through this partnership has already redistributed the equivalent of over 3.5 million meals to charities across Ireland.
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