Marks & Spencer, Tesco and Sainsbury’s have all announced major resource efficiency initiatives this month, including innovative measures to help reduce food waste and carbon emissions.

Following Marks & Spencer’s lead, Tesco has decided to trial a hormone-absorbing strip that helps to tackle food waste, while Sainsbury’s has announced a change to its food freezing advice and converted a 100th store to energy-efficient refrigeration.

Packaging improvements

M&S recently announced that it would be adding small, 8cm by 4.5cm strips to all of its strawberry punnets, to help keep the fruit fresher for longer.

The strips contain a mixture of minerals and clay that can absorbs ethylene, a hormone that causes fruit to ripen and start to turn mouldy.

Previous trials by M&S revealed waste savings of at least four per cent, which would equate to about 800,000 strawberries during peak strawberry season.

Tesco will now pilot the new technology in packs of tomatoes and avocados. It hopes to save the equivalent of up to 1.6 million packs of tomatoes and 350,000 packs of avocados per year, which will also bring significant cost savings.

Steve Deeble, a Tesco technician said: "We have already trialled the packaging in a storage environment and all the signs are that this could be one of the most significant developments in packaging for many years, so now we want to know what our customers think of it."

If successful, the strips could be rolled out at no extra cost to the consumer, across 80 per cent of the tomato varieties on sale at Tesco, and to other fruit and vegetable products.

New freezing advice

At Sainsbury’s, food waste is being tackled by changing the advice on frozen food labels. Until recently the advice was that customers should freeze food on the day of purchase, but the new labels advise that food should simply be frozen 'as soon as possible' up to the product’s 'use by' date.

The initiative has the backing of the Government's waste advisory body, the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP). Recent research showed that 60 per cent of consumers believed that food had to be frozen on the day of purchase, or else it should be thrown away, but this is not the case.

WRAP estimates that changing the standard advice on all food products could help to save as much as 800,000 tonnes of perfectly edible food from being thrown away each year.

Bob Martin, food safety expert at the Food Standards Agency said: "Freezing after the day of purchase shouldn't pose a food safety risk as long as food has been stored in accordance with any instructions provided.

"The most important thing is to freeze food before its 'use by' date, as that is the only date that relates to food safety. Our advice continues to be to follow the use by date and treat all other dates more flexibly."

Energy-saving fridges

Meanwhile, Sainsbury’s is continuing to invest in more energy-efficient, carbon dioxide (CO₂) refrigerators, as part of its 20 by 20 Sustainability Plan. It recently equipped its 100th store with the technology in Ely, Cambridgeshire.

The company plans to convert 135 of its stores to CO₂ refrigeration by 2014, to help with an emissions reduction target of 30 per cent by 2020, against a 2005 baseline.

Director of store development, David Sheehan said: "Cutting CO₂ is a huge priority for us and addressing refrigeration in this way allows us to make the largest possible difference in the shortest possible time."

Refrigeration is typically the largest source of greenhouse gases in supermarkets.

This is partly because of the energy required to power the units, but also because traditional refrigeration has relied on so-called 'F' gases such as hydrofluorocarbon (HFCs) or hydrochlorofluorocarbon (HCFCs), which can have a global warming potential that is 2,000 to 3,000 times greater than CO₂.

Posted under Material and Packaging Efficiency
and Waste Management
and Food and Drink
and Other Service Sector on 22 February 2012