Reducing food waste at Thomas Ridley

Did you know, decomposing food in landfill releases methane which is 25 – 28 times worse for the environment than carbon dioxide? Reducing food waste - and improving how you process unavoidable waste - is one of the best things that we can do for the environment.

Here are three ways that we're actively making a difference and helping to reduce the impacts of our food waste.

1 - Partnership with Still Good Food

We're proud to work closely this food waste charity, based just a few miles from us in Suffolk, to give short-dated or damaged food that we can’t sell a second chance to be enjoyed.

We make deliveries every week and love what this team of volunteers are doing!

The amount of food this small charity saves is fantastic. From picking apples and pumpkins from local fields that can’t be harvested (called gleaning!) to rescuing short-dated food from supermarkets or accepting unsellable products from us; they are saving a lot of produce from being wasted!

Still Good Food, which is operated by volunteers, redistribute this food through their community shops for anyone to buy in return for a donation.

This charity is different to a food bank – focused on helping the planet by reducing waste – and is open to anyone to use. We really enjoy working with Still Good Food, knowing that some of the food that we can no longer sell is being put to good use in our local community.

Find out more about this charity

2 - Diverting all of our waste food from landfill

A few years ago, we stopped sending any waste food and drink to landfill and now support making green energy for the national grid instead, with ReFood UK!

All waste food and drink products that can’t go to our charity partner are stacked up on pallets in our large frozen warehouse, to preserve them, and are then sent by the lorry load to an anaerobic digestion facility in Dagenham.

This has reduced our emissions enormously and puts this waste to good use!

Find out more about ReFood and how this process works

Fun fact – one banana peel can create enough energy to charge a smart phone – twice! So, within the right infrastructure, a lot of good can come from your leftover or waste food!

3 - Reducing the amount of food that is wasted, full stop.

At Thomas Ridley, on average, 50 tonnes of waste food and drink are diverted from landfill each year and turned into green energy for the grid instead.

This is doing a lot of good for the environment, by stopping methane production in landfills and supporting green energy production to power homes, like yours.

However, we want to do more and are also actively working to reduce the amount of food wasted in the first instance, by about 20% each year.

We will still support Still Good Food and the production of green energy from waste food but want to work positively towards reducing our waste - not just offsetting it.