(News24) – Pick n Pay has announced a “war on waste” campaign that will see the retailer focusing on food waste, energy inefficiency and the waste of human talent due to high unemployment . The campaign was launched on Monday by Pick n Pay chairperson Gareth Ackerman and CEO Richard Brasher at the SA retailer’s annual general meeting.
“As much as a third of all the food produced for human consumption is wasted,” said Ackerman. “Tackling food waste is a huge priority for SA, where a large percentage of our people still go hungry.” Brasher said PnP already gave its surplus food to FoodBank SA, “which is still perfectly safe to eat”. As a result, he said the company is already contributing three million meals for hungry people each year and is saving almost 1,000 tonnes of food waste per year.
The company claims it has cut energy consumption per square metre by over 30 percent since 2008, saving over R60 million per year. Additionally, it has created over 3,000 new jobs over the past year. Brasher elaborated on three new goals for the company:
- “In terms of tackling climate change, and including our work on climate-friendly refrigeration, we will aim to reduce CO2 emissions by 25% per square metre by 2020;
- “We will create 20 new jobs in SA every working day… This will add up to around 5,000 new jobs per year as we expand our ability to serve customers across the country.
- “We will cut the food waste we send to landfill by 20 percent by 2020. In addition to deepening our partnership with FoodBank, we will find new ways to make productive use of food waste. And as our business becomes more efficient and effective we will reduce the amount of food waste we produce in the first place.”
