TESCO TO TRIAL DISTRIBUTION OF EXPIRING FOOD TO REDUCE WASTE – The initiative will apply to already discounted “yellow sticker” items
Tesco is set to launch a trial offering expiring food to customers for free at the end of the day in an effort to cut food waste.
The initiative will apply to already discounted “yellow sticker” items, which will be available for free after 9:30 PM in selected Tesco Express stores over the coming months. Tesco already donates surplus food to charities and food banks but aims to further reduce waste as part of its commitment to halving food waste.
The supermarket clarified that expiring food would first be offered to charities and store employees before being made available to customers. While the specific locations and start date of the trial have not been disclosed, a Tesco spokesperson confirmed that it will take place in a limited number of Express stores across the UK.
Tesco, the UK’s largest supermarket chain with a 27.8% market share, operates 3,700 stores in the UK and around 750 internationally. Like other major retailers, Tesco partners with charities to redistribute surplus food. Its main competitors—Sainsbury’s, Asda, Aldi, and Morrisons—have all pledged to cut food waste in half by 2030, with Aldi claiming to have already achieved this goal.
Many supermarkets already offer deep discounts on expiring products, but Tesco’s trial marks the first direct-to-customer initiative of its kind in the UK. The company aims to cut its food waste by 50% this year as part of its broader net-zero emissions strategy.
Previously, Tesco reported a 45% reduction in food waste between 2017 and 2022. However, in February last year, it revised this figure to 18% after discovering that a contractor had been diverting some of the waste to generate energy rather than redistributing it as food.
