Major retailers including Marks & Spencer, Iceland, Aldi, Sainsbury’s and The Co-op have endorsed a new ‘chill to freeze’ innovation developed by Company Shop to tackle the UK’s food waste challenge.

The initiative will see surplus stock blast frozen and then sold as frozen product; an industry first in the redistribution sector. The process will help to address the long-standing challenge of how to redistribute stock with limited shelf life, to prevent it ending up as waste.

Company Shop has secured Primary Authority assured advice for the new processes and controls. This innovative capability provides supply chain partners with an additional redistribution solution following the Government’s updated Resources & Waste Strategy, which states that redistribution should be the first option for surplus food in the Food Waste Hierarchy – a development which Company Shop has always championed.

Joanna Holland, Senior Client Manager at Company Shop, said:

“Company Shop handled 70 million food and household items in 2018 to prevent them from going to waste. Chill to freeze will enhance our capabilities so that we can take even more surplus stock and help ensure it gets used for the purpose it was originally intended for.”

Louise Nicholls, Corporate Head of Human Rights, Food Sustainability (Plan A) & Food Packaging at M&S, said:

“We’re finding new ways to accelerate towards our goal of halving our food waste by 2025 and we’ll make sure 100% of our surplus food ends up on a person’s plate."

“Company Shop’s ‘chill to freeze’ process will enable us to go further and faster and most importantly, will help us to redistribute more food to communities nearby our stores.”