Carrefour Belgium takes part in the country's first anti-food waste week

More than half of all food waste is created in the home. To encourage consumers to stop wasting food, Carrefour Belgium got involved in the first Zero Food Waste Week, organised in Belgium by the Too Good to Go app, which the retailer has been partnering since 2018. This initiative, which ran from 26 September to 2 October, follows on from numerous other initiatives that Carrefour Belgium has been implementing in this area for more than 15 years.

Seven days without food waste – a first in Belgium!�

26 September saw the start of Belgium's first ever “Anti-waste challenge”, organised by Too Good to Go. Consumers who take part in it are invited, every day of the week, to take up a challenge and so take a step in the right direction. They are also sent ideas for recipes, together with tips and tricks that will inspire them to reduce their day-to-day waste.�

“As one of Too Good to Go's very first partners, we are delighted to be involved in this initiative – which is particularly meaningful given the current cost-of-living crisis. We would like to encourage our customers and employees to actively take part”, said Pascal L�glise, Carrefour Belgium's Director of Social Responsibility, Quality and Sustainable Development.

Carrefour has been partnering Too Good to Go since 2018. This is an app that locates partner retailers at whose stores users can earmark baskets of products nearing their expiry date. These can then be purchased at reduced prices, thus helping to tackle food waste. Over the months, this partnership has been widened – 463 stores have now signed up to it. Altogether, more than half million baskets have been distributed by Carrefour stores in Belgium since the start of this collaboration.�Indeed, Carrefour accounts for one sixth of all food packages sold via the Too Good to Go app.

A commitment on all fronts

Carrefour has been committed to tackling food waste for more than 15 years and has pledged to take action to reduce wastage on all fronts. Indeed, tackling food waste is one of the key aims of the Act for Food programme, which the Group has developed globally.�

For Carrefour, putting an end to waste starts with effective internal procedures. Particular attention is therefore paid to stock management, the aim being to keep quantities of unsold items to a minimum. When a product is nearing its use-by date, it quickly goes on special offer and is put on sale at a discount. To do this, the retailer introduces flash sales in its stores. These products can be easily identified thanks to their yellow labels and can be discounted by up to 70%. They are still fit for human consumption for a few days, and sometimes even for a few weeks when it comes to non-food products. A whole series of non-perishable products (oils, vinegars, sweets, alcoholic beverages, etc.) have no use-by dates – specifically in order to limit food waste.

Tackling food waste is all about solidarity

Tackling food waste and solidarity go hand-in-hand. Carrefour was the first food retailer to join forces with the Bourse aux Dons, a scheme set up to manage donations, enabling charities and stores to interact. The result: Carrefour has delivered the equivalent of more than 2 million meals to society's most vulnerable people since 2020 – a period during which demand was obviously extremely high.�

Recycling efforts

And yet, despite all of these internal and external initiatives, some products remain unsold. But that is not the end of the story. Whenever possible, unsold products are recycled and recovered. In particular, they are used as raw materials for biomethanisation, a recycling process whereby gas is produced from organic waste. This gas can then be used as an input in the natural gas network or as a fuel for buses, heating or industrial applications.

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