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bidfood.co.uk/sustainability
Our principles
Our communities Awards
In 2021, we trialled a reusable cage cover at
Paddock Wood in our quest to ultimately replace
pallet wrap, and whilst we got to a fairly good place
with prototypes, we concluded that these would
only partially address the issue in the short-medium
term. The preference is to move to a 4-sided cage,
which would generate zero plastic waste and
help drive circularity. We have been working with
industry experts to develop a product that would
work within our business, and Nottingham depot are
trialling some of these later in 2022.
For plastic packaging reduction progress, please
see the Customers section of our report
Used cooking oil collection
In the last financial year, our customers' waste
cooking oil collection by Olleco totalled 4,192
litres. Used cooking oil is converted to biodiesel
by Olleco, and this biodiesel has an even lower
environmental impact than conventional biodiesel,
as the cooking oil is a waste product; it reduces the
burden placed on the land to create yet more crops.
It's a great way to help encourage more circularity
within foodservice.
Plastics reduction - pallet wrap
In the absence of feasible alternatives, our
consumption of pallet wrap is a significant driver
of plastic usage, so we continue to target a
decrease in pallet wrap per item picked. 6 microns
is now the preferred thickness of pallet wrap
across the Bidfood estate, as we can achieve
equal performance with less plastic. At the time of
writing this report, we are trialling a 5 micron wrap
at our Slough depot. The table below shows our
consumption trend:
Influenced by pandemic impacts
Waste type (Tonnes) 2017/18 2018/19 2019/20 2020/21 2021/22
Landfill 19 54 35 8 Pending
Energy from waste (EFW) 1,339 1,410 1,605 1,337
Anaerobic digestion 1,080 1,433 1,973 1,507
Cardboard 1,133 1,103 1,424 828
LPDE (low density polyethylene) 458 439 410 300
Other recycled waste 3,779 4,261 4,116 3,411
Total waste 7,808 8,700 9,562 7,391
Waste stream percentages
Landfill percentage 0.2% 0.6% 0.4% 0.11%
EFW percentage 17.1% 16.2% 16.8% 18.20%
Recycling percentage (inc AD) 82.6% 83.2% 82.9% 81.80%
Waste Avoidance-
redistributed food (tonnes)
309 509 404 342
Management of waste overall
Summary 2019 Calendar year 2019/20 FY 2020/21 FY 2021/22 FY
Total items picked 120,378,683 105,604,918 88,791,834 103,539,284*
Total consumption of hand film (kg) 207,923 165,053 135,755 165,830
Total consumption of machine film (kg) 6,570 6,570 7,962 4,371
Total pallet wrap (kg) overall 214,493 171,623 143,717 170,201
Average weight of film used per pick (g) 1.78 1.63 1.62 1.64
*Please note, pallet wrap data was unavailable for two of our sites, so we've excluded their pick volume from the total
items picked figure, so that the average is a genuine reflection of pallet wrap per pick.