All this for £1.50! Lidl’s box of ‘damaged’ fruit and veg
SUPERMARKET shoppers will now be able to buy five kilos of fruit and veg for just £1.50 amid a drive to slash food waste.
The bargain boxes will contain food which, due to slight damage or discolouration, would once have been thrown out despite being perfectly safe to eat.
The Too Good to Waste initiative from Lidl will see the boxes on offer until midday, at which point any left unsold will be given to local charities through another of the company’s schemes, Feed it Back.
The move is part of a wider trend among food retailers to find ways to offer fresh produce that does not meet the industry’s normal ‘beauty pageant’ standards. Such schemes have already seen supermarkets adding special ranges of ‘wonky’ fruit and vegetables to shelves which are cheaper than their regular stock.
Tesco has also made strides to divert ‘ugly’ produce to processors for use in ready meals.
A trial of the Lidl scheme saw 50,000 boxes sold and 250 tons of food saved. The Too Good to Waste offer will now be introduced across all of the chain’s 760 stores in Britain. The firm’s UK chief executive, Christian Hartnagel, said: ‘The positive feedback we received off the back of our trial has been incredible, from our colleagues [and] our customers.
‘We’re really excited to be rolling the boxes out to all of our stores. This initiative is not only helping to tackle the highly important challenge of food waste – it’s also helping our customers make even more savings.
‘Additionally, it’s a great example of how we can ... fulfil our mission to make good, healthy food more affordable and accessible whilst acting sustainably.’