How to recover each type of surplus in food manufacturing
1. Preparation
3. Quality control (QC)
Repurpose Pastry offcuts can be cooked with other surplus ingredients to make pies. Vegetable offcuts can be made into healthy soups and, with protein added, into stews. Repack Surplus produced during preparation can be packaged up and recovered. When vegetable grower and manufacturer, Barfoots , prepares butternut squash and sweet potatoes, cutting them into squares, there are some offcuts which are still nutritious but don’t fit within specifications. Felix repack these nutritious vegetables and transports them to charities.
Since May 2024, 210 tonnes of root vegetables – equivalent to 0.5 million meals – have been redirected through the Morrisons and Myton Food Group collaboration with Felix. Redirect Produce which has been graded out can be simply redirected. Millions of pounds of underweight cereal bars are repackaged into larger packets and sent to Felix at a cost of £10,000 a year – just 2.3% of the retail value. Relabel When items are over or under a weight requirement, the label can be updated, enabling recovery. At a bakery firm, 3-4% of baked goods with aesthetic quality issues are recovered to Felix. That is 7-11 tonnes of edible food every week, worth £1.8 million a year at a cost to the baker of just £155,000. Repack Where items regularly fail a check – such as pastry or bread not meeting a colour specification due to uneven cooking at an industrial scale – these can be put into compliantly labelled packaging and picked up by Felix. Relabel/redirect If there is a QC issue on an item that was created to be exported, it can be relabelled to ensure it is traceable and compliant in the UK. Repurpose Food that doesn’t pass QC but is still edible can be transformed into something completely new. Raspberries that are too soft to eat could be collected and juiced at Felix hubs, or third party facilities.
2. Operations
Redirect When items fall outside specifications or inefficiencies create surplus, for instance misshapen or extra fruit and vegetables, they can be simply redirected to Felix.
Fresh produce supplier, Primafruit’s second and third grade bananas are placed into dolavs. Felix collect and move them to their regional hubs to repackage them. This provides a regular supply of high quality fruit, at little cost to the manufacturer and with the benefit of not having to send items to waste. When BerryWorld’s berries are either too small or misshapen for retailers to sell, this fruit is placed into lined crates donated by WestPak , which is then collected by Felix each day. Relabel If an incorrect ingredient has been added to a ready meal, or items have been made for a foreign market but can’t be sent due to purchasing, forecasting or shipping errors, relabelling makes recovery possible.
26
Made with FlippingBook - Online catalogs