SPAR Austria donates food to 200 social services

September 24, 2019 IN THE CATEGORY: Community, Responsible retailing

To help significantly reduce food waste, SPAR Austria has donated expired but still edible food to 200 different social services throughout the country. Together with local partners, SPAR Austria has made the products available to people in need.

For many years, SPAR Austria has set itself the task of keeping food waste to a minimum. Recording only 1-2% of unsold food, one can certainly argue that this goal is being met. Charitable donations remain one of the most important means of preventing food waste and each SPAR store in the country works with local social services, non-profit organisations or food sharing initiatives to keep this cause going.

Food donations

If foods are of good quality but can no longer be sold instore due, for example, to an expired best before date or a product being mislabelled or damaged, SPAR Austria will pass them on to charitable organisations free of charge. In turn, the charities distribute the products to people in need for free or a very low price, or they use them to prepare warm meals.

Other valuable measures

In addition to distributing food to social services, SPAR Austria has been campaigning against food waste through other means for many years. For example, a sophisticated ordering and delivery system has been put in place that ensures optimum availability of goods instore, which are only replenished when needed. This accuracy in the number of products on shelves helps to make sure that almost all foods end up in the shopping bags of customers instead of the bin.

Another helpful initiative has been the partnership with “Food is precious”, an undertaking introduced by the Federal Ministry of Sustainability and Tourism to halve avoidable food waste by 2030 by discounting foods that are about to expire. Thanks to the 25% discount sticker and the logo of the programme, customers can easily choose products that save them money, whilst contributing to the fight against food waste.

And finally, in addition to informing customers about ways to reduce food waste in its customer magazine SPAR meal! and its website, SPAR Austria donates inedible baked goods that are no longer suitable for human consumption to local feed producers to be processed into high-quality animal feed.

Source: SPAR Austria