Iceland plans to provide food items on the last day of their shelf life for free to online consumers in order to minimise waste.
All food items ordered and delivered by Iceland has previously had a shelf life of at least two days.
Following a successful trial in 40 locations with over 17,000 items available for free and customers receiving an average refund of £1.58 per order, the campaign will be expanded to all 1,000 supermarkets.
The consumer will be informed of the free item before delivery, and no money will be charged.
It’s expected that the ‘Free on Last Day of Life’ scheme has the potential to save consumers £500,000 with more than 1.3 million items given to the UK public.
The customer takes no additional action during the process. If an item purchased is the only one available on that day, it will be scanned, identified, and added to the shopping basket as usual.
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What food is included?
- Chilled
- Fresh
- Cakes
- Bread
- Morning goods
Why can they not just give those to the homeless/charity?
Often the above items cannot be given to charity as they’re perishable.
Iceland Foods managing director, Richard Walker, said:
“Reducing food waste is a huge priority for us as we continue to reduce our impact on the environment.
“We know that shelf life plays a big role in the creation of surplus food so we to have find an innovative way to combat this within our stores and via our online shopping.”
“Our Free on Last Day of Life scheme not only helps reduce food waste but also supports our customers.
“We know cost is key to many of our shoppers and this new initiative allows us to offer them the opportunity to reduce their weekly shopping bills as well as helping to reduce food waste.”
