Waste

We're working to halve our food waste by 2030 across our stores and redistribute more food to communities that need it, which given the cost of living crisis is more important than ever.

Workstream Objectives

• 50% reduction in food waste in store by 2030 from 2016 baseline
• Zero waste to landfill by 2025

Reducing Food Waste

In Our Stores

We take all available steps to minimise food waste in our stores. Technology makes our forecasts more accurate, and we only order what we think we can sell. And when products are close to their “use by” or “best before” dates, we offer them at reduced prices. 

So far, we’ve reduced our operational food waste in stores by 5000 tonnes and by 2030, we aim to have cut it by 50% against a 2016 baseline. Our targets are in line with WRAP’s Courtauld 2030 initiative, meaning we report our food waste reduction as a percentage of our total sales.

In The Field

Our Naturally Wonky range sells fruit and vegetables that may be misshapen, have skin blemishes or growth cracks, or be much smaller or larger than average. 

Launched in 2015, it helps to minimise food waste in the field and offers affordable produce to customers. It also gives farmers an alternative route to market. We offer 24 wonky varieties, selling 27,000 tonnes of fruit and vegetables this way in 2022.

Helping Our Customers At Home

According to the Waste Resources Action Group (WRAP), 70% of food waste happens in households. We’re continually evaluating our labelling and storage instructions to give customers the right information to make the most of the food they buy. Check out the ways we are improving our packaging to extend the freshness of our products.

Around 490 million pints of milk are wasted every year. After potatoes and bread, it’s the third most wasted food and drink product in the UK. That’s why in January 2022 we scrapped “use by” dates on 90 percent of our own-brand milk, changing our labelling to “best before”. As a marker of quality, not food safety, it’s designed to encourage customers to decide for themselves whether their milk is still good to drink.

Using our surplus food for good

When we're left with surplus food in stores or at our manufacturing sites, we work with partners to redistribute as much of it as possible. 

We work with registered B-Corp Too Good to Go to enable customers to buy high-quality products that are past their “best before” date at a fraction of their original price. So far we’ve sold over 1 million ‘Magic Bags’ bags through the Too Good to Go app.

Our stores are also empowered to give surplus food to local causes such as food banks. They distributed 2 million products this way in 2022, helping to avoid over 900 tonnes of food waste.

Morrisons manufacturing sites and distribution centres work with The Bread and Butter Thing to redistribute surplus food to where it’s needed most in communities, reaching over 30,000 families in 100 locations.

In our stores we provide free fruit for kids and have set up water refill stations in over 400 of our stores.

When food cannot be redistributed, we follow the Hierarchy of waste and send it to anaerobic digestion to generate renewable energy.

Our Contribution