Ocado minimises food waste through efficient operations. Our technology accurately forecasts demand, shortening supply chains and reducing overordering. Over 80% of orders are sold before arrival.

Unsold food is efficiently redistributed. In 2023, 72% of unsold food went to staff, charities and Company Shop. Inedible food is sent for anaerobic digestion, which then creates energy that powers our Dordon CFC.

We take pride in our redistribution network, which in 2023, has successfully redistributed £10.7 million in surplus stock to our trusted network of charity partners across the UK including The Felix Project and Community Shop. In 2023, generous customer donations through our initiative You Give We Give contributed £2.5 million to this total. Working closely with Ocado Group, we strive for maximum efficiency in redistributing products to realise their full usage potential.

We partner with suppliers through Manufacture 2030, a platform which helps suppliers measure, improve and communicate their food waste performance.

We also optimise processes and packaging to maximise freshness and minimise damage. We follow WRAP's best practices for redistributing our Own Range products and are exploring farm-level surplus redistribution to reduce waste.

We are proud partners and sponsors of the Farm to Freezer pilot with The Felix Project. It supports The Coronation Food Project, inspired by His Majesty King Charles III, which aims to unlock more surplus food from the value chain to reduce both food waste and food insecurity. The pilot focuses on accessing surplus food at farms by using innovative ways of prolonging the life of foods including juicing, jamming, cutting, saucing, chopping and freezing.

60% of food waste comes from households. We have a responsibility to empower our customers to prevent and reduce their food waste, with the added bonus of helping them save money.

• We make it easy: Our receipts are thoughtfully organised by expiry dates, enabling customers to prioritise items, plan meals and reduce food waste.
• We get customer insights: In partnership with WRAP, we trial interventions to reduce household food waste and have removed best-before date labels in 64% of our unprepared produce lines.
• We use innovation: We continue to build on the success of our 2022 pioneering trial with QR codes on our Own Range milk and have expanded this to other products such as Ocado Mince Beef. The codes provide customers with real-time information, tips and recipes to prevent food waste.
• We support consumer campaigns: We proudly support WRAP's Food Waste Week and conduct our own marketing initiatives to raise awareness and educate both externally and internally.
• We promote food waste recipes and tips: Through our OcadoLife magazine and charity partnerships, we provide food waste recipes and raise awareness about the impact of waste on food insecurity. In 2023, with Beano, we created the iconic comic’s first ever cookbook, to help families make their food go further, and take children and parents on a fun, food-fuelled journey through the joy of cooking. With WRAP and Beano, we created KS1 and KS2 lessons that teach children about the world’s food waste problem and equip them to reduce their own waste.

We measure our food waste in line with the Food Loss and Waste Protocol (FWLP). The methodology measures food waste as a percentage of “food handled” by weight.

Food handled is defined as food sold + food redistributed (to charities, zoos, etc) + food waste (inedible food that is unable to be redistributed for animal or human consumption, instead sent to anaerobic digestion). It excludes non-food products and packaging weight.

We established our baseline in 2022: 0.59% of food handled in our operations ended up as waste. In 2023, food waste was reduced to 0.43%, which represents a 27% reduction against the baseline.

A focus on operational efficiencies including better discount management, improved forecasting, proactive management of potential surplus with enhanced visibility, improved supply chain stock management, and better reporting has driven the reduction.