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PAK’nSave Albany makes the most of their waste with food rescue organisations such as KiwiHarvest.
WASTE MANAGEMENT & RECYCLING Sustainable leadership is one of the four ‘HereforNZ’ promises at Foodstuffs and all parts of the business, including supermarkets, distribution centres and support centres are working towards a zero-waste goal. Emma Wooster, Head of Public Relations at Foodstuffs NZ explains: “We believe no food fit for human consumption should ever go to waste, which is why every New World and PAK’nSAVE store has a food rescue, or food bank partnership, in place to redistribute surplus, or short dated food to New Zealanders in need. “Where possible, our stores also supply local farmers by providing food waste that is not fit for human consumption, for example, corn husks for stock-feed. “Our in-house sustainability team have recently introduced a set of guidelines for our owner-operated stores, providing them with the information and support they need to safely donate a whole range of food including meat, chilled and frozen products to their local communities. We’ve already achieved a noticeable reduction in our overall landfill volumes and an increase in donated food in local communities since we did this. “Food hubs also play an important role in supporting us to minimise waste, by collecting surplus food from our stores and diverting it to foodbanks to distribute in communities throughout New Zealand. Stores re-direct a range of products unlikely to be purchased in a retail environment for a multitude of reasons, including blemishes on produce, damaged packaging, or product that’s close to its best before date. Although a store may choose not to sell these products, they are still safe to eat. “PAK’nSave Albany is a great example of a store that makes the most of their waste, browning bananas in the produce department are directed
to the bakery to make banana bread in-store and they recently expanded on the range of products they’re donating through their partnerships with food rescue organisations such as KiwiHarvest. On average they’re redirecting over 4 tonnes of food per month back into the community. This equates to around 11,000 meals.”
Recycling at Countdown The Countdown team says: “We’re always looking for new ways to help customers recycle more easily and to prevent waste in the first place. Here at Countdown we’re big supporters of the Soft Plastics Recycling Scheme with 106 of our stores throughout Aotearoa now accepting soft plastics for recycling, and we’re working hard to expand access to soft plastics recycling to more communities. “We’ve also made a number of changes to our packaging to make it easier for recycling including: • Shifting all bakery products and Macro chicken products into clear recyclable plastic. • Launching a first-to-market recyclable-ready meal tray, meaning 7.5 tonnes of plastic that would otherwise have gone to landfill can now be recycled. • Improving the recyclability of our Own Brand packaging by removing PVC, polystyrene and difficult to recycle colours - including repackaging our 2-litre ice cream tubs in a light coloured polypropylene that diverts 121 tonnes of plastic from landfill back into recycling. • Making all of our meat trays fully recyclable and removing soaker pads with a new tray design, preventing 40 million pads from going to landfill each year.” FMCG BUSINESS - SEPTEMBER 2022
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