Food Waste

Food waste reduction target 2025

1 Source: WRI
2 Source: FAO
3 Source: UN

Food waste is one of the three main topics of our sustainability strategy as it has significant economic, environmental, and social impacts on top of significant operational impact for our business. It is estimated that 1/3 of food is wasted from farm to fork1, while food waste is responsible for 8 % of global GHG emissions². 957 million people experience hunger in the world according to the UN.³ METRO has therefore committed itself to the Resolution on Food Waste by the Consumer Goods Forum (CGF) and set a target to eliminate 50% of wasted food in our own operations by the year 2025. We have now set the baseline for this target to fiscal year 2017/18. We are implementing the Food Loss and Waste Protocol standard to measure food waste in METRO’s own operations and report on our progress against our food waste reduction target.

We are tackling food waste holistically, with a 5-pillar strategy from farm to fork: (1) supplier engagement, (2) food waste reporting, (3) (technological) food waste solutions, (4) customer and partner engagement, and (5) stakeholder and industry engagement.

In 22 countries we cooperate with food banks to donate surplus food to those in need. We also partner with TooGoodToGo in 10 countries to enhance this effort.

Find out more on our fight against food waste on our website, as well as relevant key figures here.

1 Source: WRI

2 Source: FAO

3 Source: UN