Minimising Food Waste at Warburtons
Did you know that 30% of all global greenhouse gases come from producing food? Despite this, one third of all food produced goes to waste, accounting for more greenhouse gas emissions than all of the commercial flights taken each year.
While preventing food waste and surplus before it occurs is our primary focus, where this is unavoidable, we prioritise redistributing product to local organisations that ensure it is redirected to those who need it most. Managing and minimising the waste of edible resources is not just an environmental imperative, it is also a human one.
Whether it’s through our manufacturing operations, our distribution chain, or in our consumers’ homes, we’re committed to minimising food waste.
Zero Food Waste to Landfill since 2015
We take great pride in making our products and hate to see them wasted. Within our own operations, we are proud to say we have avoided sending any Warburtons food product to landfill since 2015.
While preventing food waste and surplus before it occurs is our primary focus, where this is unavoidable, we prioritise redistributing product for human consumption.
Where redistribution isn’t viable, we send our remaining surplus to be repurposed into animal feed.
Ensuring Every Loaf Gets Eaten
Since 2017, over 1,300 tonnes of our surplus product – equating to 1,625,000 loaves of our toastie white – have been redistributed to help those in need, through our longstanding partnerships with Fareshare, Company Shop and other charitable organisations.
FareShare redistributes surplus food to charities that turn it into meals, while Company Shop takes surplus stock and redistributes it through its discounted surplus supermarkets and the award-winning social enterprise, Community Shop.
“We’ve been proud to partner with Warburtons for a number of years, in which time we’ve helped stop thousands of tonnes of perfectly good food from going to waste. But it’s more than that, we’ve helped transform that waste into value, and through donations to our award-winning social enterprise Community Shop, Warburtons have supported thousands of families to live better. Thank you to everyone at Warburtons for your continued support as we work together to reduce waste and transform lives across the UK.”
Chris Burns, Group Managing Director, Company Shop Group
Wonky Bagels
We pride ourselves on making the best quality products and wouldn’t dream of putting wonky or over-baked bagels on to the shelves of a retailer. Yet we recognise these ‘wonky bagels’ are still perfectly good to eat and shouldn’t be needlessly wasted.
In 23/24 we began trials at our Stockton bakery for a new initiative, in partnership with Company Shop Group, who sort and pack our lovingly-termed ‘wonky bagels’ into non-branded packaging before selling to their members across 15 Company Shop stores nationwide. To date, we’ve successfully redistributed over 70,000 loose, unpackaged wonky bagels to the nation’s tables!
Repurposing Product to Animal Feed
When redistribution isn’t feasible, for instance, when packaging is damaged and we can’t guarantee food safety, or excess dough needs to be removed from the production line, we repurpose these products and raw materials into animal feed.
We have a longstanding partnership with SugaRich, who collect and take away our product, strip off all of the packaging – some of which can be recycled – and then take the product and process it into a highly nutritious animal feed product. This animal feed is then sold on farmers who use it to feed their livestock, where it effectively re-enters the food chain.
With their innovative SugaTrak technology, we track every collection, helping us better understand our production excess which helps us reduce waste across our bakeries.
Helping our Consumers
Everyday in the UK, 20 million slices of untouched bread are thrown away at home. We want to help our consumers to make the most of every loaf and we proud members of WRAP’s UK Food and Drink Pact 2030, and actively promote the Love Food Hate Waste programme.
According to WRAP, if we all stopped wasting bread at home for a year it could do the same for greenhouse gas emissions as planting 5.3 million trees.
Making the Most of Warburtons Product
Don’t forget all our products can be frozen – best done on day of purchase – take a look at the pack for details! Here are our top tips on storage and freezing:
- The cupboard is the best place to store bread. Keep bread and rolls in a fairly cool, dark and dry place, like bread bin or cupboard, in their original packaging.
- Most packed bread and packaged bakery products can be eaten two days to up to a week after the best before date – check before you throw it away!
- You can freeze all varieties of bread. Slices from a frozen loaf can be defrosted as needed, or toasted straight from the freezer.
- Stale bread makes great breadcrumbs – you can freeze them to use for crumble or pasta bake toppings, stuffing or thickening sauces!
Click here for some inspiration on different ways to use our delicious products to minimise waste. You can also find some yummy leftover recipes for any food at www.lovefoodhatewaste.com/.