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Press Release
Morrisons, FareShare and Newton Join Forces to Tackle Food Poverty Across the UK
The collaboration between Morrisons, FareShare, and Newton supports the Coronation Food Project, which was inspired by His Majesty King Charles III. It is tackling the challenge of food waste and contributing to the alleviation of food poverty by redistributing surplus food across UK supply chains.
UNITED KINGDOM [16 October 2024] – Morrisons, the grocery retailer, has strengthened its efforts to combat food waste and alleviate food poverty across the UK by partnering with the food redistribution charity FareShare and strategic delivery partner Newton. This initiative builds on Morrisons’ ongoing commitment to reducing food surplus, in addition to existing food redistribution partnerships. Together, these collaborations aim to make a significant impact in addressing hunger and reducing food waste nationwide.
In January 2024, The Food Foundation reported that 15% of UK households, including approximately 8 million adults and 3 million children, were living in food insecurity. Additionally, FareShare’s 2023/2024 Annual Impact survey revealed that 86% of the charities it supports have experienced increased demand for their services over the past year. This partnership underscores a shared commitment to turning surplus food into essential resources for those most in need.
Flaxby, part of Myton Food Group, Morrisons manufacturing arm, is located in North Yorkshire, and packs all of Morrisons’ carrots and onions. By utilising Newton’s strength in unlocking complexity to deliver meaningful impact, the partnership uncovered previously untapped value in surplus that could be recovered for human consumption. Newton and Morrisons engineering and manufacturing team collaborated to create an innovative solution to make recovery of this produce possible. Morrisons pledged to provide this recovered volume to FareShare, due to their dedication to providing good food to those who need it, instead of letting it go to waste. The Myton team at Flaxby has worked diligently to implement waste reduction methods and identify surplus food for redistribution, as part of their ambition to ensure that all edible produce goes for human consumption.
Collaboration Highlights:
Over 13 Million Meals Redistributed:
Since their formal partnership began in April 2017, Morrisons and FareShare have successfully redistributed more than 13 million meals to charities across the UK.
500,000 Meals Pledged:
In November 2023, Morrisons pledged 500,000 meals to the Coronation Food Project, reinforcing their commitment to addressing food poverty.
National Expansion:
The initial trial supporting the Coronation Food Project has seen 3 tonnes of produce, equivalent to 7,143 meals, already redirected to FareShare Yorkshire. Building on this success, the initiative has been expanded nationwide. As of August 2024, up to 26 pallets of surplus food will be collected weekly for national redistribution through the FareShare network.
Sustainable Impacts:
For each tonne of food recovered, 2 tonnes of CO2e and 2.6 million litres of water is prevented from going to waste. By redistributing this food, Morrisons, FareShare and Newton are ensuring that the initial carbon investment to produce the vegetables is creating the greatest impact possible – feeding those in need.
Through the success of this partnership, sights have been set on expansion with further Morrison vegetable production sites such as Gadbrook, Surrey and Rushden, Northamptonshire.
George Wright, Special Advisor at FareShare, states “The support of the food industry via the IGD is critical to the Coronation Food Project, and the work of Morrisons and Newton is a great example of the progress we are making. Working closely with both of their teams, we’ve identified how we can redirect perfectly good, nutritious produce that otherwise might have been wasted to our front-line charities who provide vital wraparound services, including homelessness shelters, after school and breakfast clubs, and older people’s lunch clubs. I’d like to say a massive thank you to Rami, Steve and all their teams for their leadership and support, it really does make a huge difference.”
Rami Baitiéh, CEO of Morrisons says “As a fresh food manufacturer working closely with farmers and growers we know how much hard work goes into producing the food we sell. And as a retailer, we see the level of food insecurity that exists in the communities we serve. That’s why we’re committed to reducing food waste and ensuring that surplus food is donated rather than discarded. Through this partnership, we’re now sending our below specification carrots (that are perfectly good to eat) to FareShare centres, where they are sorted for those in need. This important initiative complements our ongoing work with other excellent charities, who help redistribute surplus food from our manufacturing sites.”
Steve Wilson, Senior Partner of Consumer at Newton says, “As a strategic delivery partner, Newton is proud to play a key role in redistributing food to those in need. The UK food supply chain is a complex ecosystem, spanning from farmers to stores and consumers, with rigorous standards and tight timings. By identifying opportunities to recover good food before it’s too late, we ensure it reaches those who need it most. As part of this collaboration, Newton has donated both time and expertise to support this vital cause. Our partnership with Morrisons and FareShare has significantly accelerated the fight against food waste, bringing us closer to our ambitious goal of distributing 70 million meals annually.”
Notes to Editors
About Fareshare
FareShare is the UK’s biggest charity tackling food waste to support social good. We take good-to-eat surplus food from across the food industry, sort it in our regional warehouses across the UK, and pass it onto a network of over 8,000 charities and community groups. These include school clubs, community centres and pantries, hostels, refuges, older people’s lunch clubs, and hospices. Three quarters of the organisations we provide food to, support children and families. During the last financial year, 2023-24, FareShare redistributed the equivalent of over 134 million meals – four meals every second. The 56,000 tonnes of food we redistributed stopped 100,000 tonnes of COe2 going to waste.
Website: www.fareshare.org.uk
About Morrisons:
Headquartered in Bradford since 1899, Morrisons is a British food retailer with over 100,000 colleagues in 496 Morrisons supermarkets and around 1,600 Morrisons Daily convenience stores – around 600 of which are franchise stores.
Foodmakers and shopkeepers are at the heart of everything we do and we have over 6,500 trained butchers, bakers, fishmongers, cheesemongers, florists and other skilled in-store specialists making good food affordable every day for our customers. We are also British farming’s single biggest direct customer.
We have 16 of our own sites making fresh meat, fruit & veg, fish, bakery and fresh food products and we are unique in that we prepare and make more than half of the fresh food sold in our stores.
We also offer popular services including cafés, pharmacies and dry cleaners.
For more information, images and interview requests please contact the Morrisons PR team on [email protected] or 0345 877 8778.
About Newton
Newton partners with clients in strategic delivery across the public and private sectors, unlocking complexity to create meaningful and lasting impact.
Newton’s approach to strategic delivery, developed across its 23-year history, is uniquely data-driven, forensically detailed, digitally enabled and human-powered. This approach has fuelled the successful delivery of programmes across more than 100 public sector organisations, multiple defence and infrastructure organisations, and leading retail and manufacturing supply chains.
These programmes have delivered real and meaningful impact for these organisations and the people they serve, including: £400m increase in sales for a major retailer whilst also improving customer satisfaction rates and improved on-shelf product availability; over £2 billion savings on a national defence programme whilst also reducing delivery timelines; and over £700m savings in the public sector while also improving outcomes for thousands of people.
Newton has such belief in what can be achieved together with clients that it stands by its founding principle – guaranteeing its fees against delivering real, measurable outcomes. This commercial approach is what sets it apart from many others in its field.
Website: www.newtonimpact.com
Contact: [email protected]