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Creating the greatest impact
Where are the best places for us to focus as an industry to get food to people who need it? At just 17p per meal, recovering surplus food is incredibly cost effective, so it is right that this is the initial focus to help the most people. But where next? And what if your category already has a low or no surplus?
We are all commercial organisations, so even if all those savings were not used, for every 10% reinvested, 66 million meals of good food would be generated for charities. This is not a pie-in-the-sky idea: leading retailers, manufacturers and providers are already reinvesting in exactly this way and truly collaborating to make best use of resources across the supply chain.
Industry example Manufacturers Two Sisters, Bakkavor, Greencore and Samworth Brothers all work to identify quiet moments in production to produce huge amounts of food for Felix, including cottage pies, pizzas, soups and pasta dishes. These, often one-off or ad hoc runs provide such a large volume of food that it cannot all be sent to charities at once, so cold storage provider Magnavale provides large storage spaces in freezer facilities across the country. This allows Felix to distribute the incredible amounts of food as and when required across the network, helping overcome peaks and troughs in both need and supply.
With £326 million worth of potential savings created by reducing waste plus extensive retail corporate social responsibility initiatives to tap into, the impact of this innovative approach would be significant.
What if we were to all come together to produce more food specifically for charities? What if at the same time, all the incredible resources of retailers and manufacturers were brought together – finance from ESG and marketing initiatives, factory lines, fridges, vans, buying power and innovative skills in recovering food?
How can organisations work out where it is best to reinvest? There are two key opportunities to look for: Producing more good food
Our research finds that a low retail cost for a balanced plate meal is £1.12, whereas the low cost to manufacture a balanced plate meal is 50p. If all of that £326 million was reinvested into creating balanced plate meals at the lowest marginal manufacturing price, it would create 657 million meals a year to donate . That’s over twice as many meals provided for vulnerable people than if we spent the same money in a retailer.
What are the opportunities to produce non-branded items within your daily/ weekly excess capacity? Each time it becomes clear that there is going to be stranded labour in a shift, could a line be run for minimal marginal cost? This might be driven by daily or weekly order fluctuations from retailers causing an oversupply of labour, or through fixed shift patterns that don’t allow full flexibility. Opportunity 1 Reactive, yet regular
Opportunity 2 Planned
What are the opportunities to produce non-branded items during seasonal or expected downtime? Can you regularly produce
Through regular communication with the Felix team, even a small amount of line time could go a long way to providing a significant increase in food availability. One of the most significant resources required for this idea is people’s time. But there’s a real pride in manufacturing teams: they want to create great products for people so this is an opportunity to engage workforces by enabling them to do the right thing during any moments of down time.
17p Average cost per meal to recover surplus food
Low retail cost for a balanced plate meal £1.12
50p Low manufacture cost for a balanced plate meal
extra surplus for Felix – perhaps on a quarterly or annual basis?
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