M&S Food has reached a milestone of donating over 50 million meals to local charities in the past seven years through its partnership with Neighbourly and efforts to tackle in-store food waste.
Some 2,700 good causes have been able to access donations of edible unsold fresh, ambient and chilled food from M&S stores, with over 6,000 benefitting from the partnership with Neighbourly in total.
In the run-up to Christmas, M&S is donating 95,000 ambient products with a value of £50,000 directly to groups. This builds on its existing £1 million donation to help 1,000 local community groups, supported by Neighbourly, as part of its Christmas ‘Gifts That Give’ Clothing and Home campaign.
M&S began collaborating with Neighbourly in 2015 and accelerated the roll-out of a new app during the pandemic to make it easier for stores to donate surplus food. The partnership is central to the retailer’s plan to tackle food waste, in line with its Plan A target for 100% of edible surplus to be redistributed by 2025. Currently, 89% on average is redistributed.
