Net Zero 2040: Our fight against food waste

Corporate Responsibility Sustainability Social Impact

Cutting Our Food Waste by 50%

At Sodexo, we are committed to halving our food waste by the end of 2025, a key part of our roadmap to Net Zero. Currently, we’ve achieved a 45% reduction in food waste across sites using WasteWatch, compared to their respective baselines. We are confident that we will meet our 50% reduction goal by 31 August 2025.

With the United Nations reporting that one-third of the world’s food is wasted, we are also focused on supporting initiatives to reduce food waste beyond our operations.

Tracking food waste to create actionable insights

A third of all food produced globally ends up being wasted*, making food waste one of the greatest contributors to climate change and biggest scandals of our time.

Whether it’s during the ordering, storage, preparation, or serving process, we are working together with our teams, clients and supply partners to reduce food and collateral waste across Sodexo sites.

WasteWatch is a measurement system allowing kitchen teams to understand what’s thrown away, and why, making it easy to identify efficiences and make informed menu choices backed up by real-time data. This technology is a key weapon in our fight against food waste and we've committed to roll it out to 100% of relevant sites by 2025.

_{*According to the United Nations Environment Programme.}

Reducing food waste across our business

WasteWatch in action in Health & Care
Sodexo colleagues at Nuffield Hospital in Leeds share their experiences of how the WasteWatch programme has helped them understand the importance of reducing food waste.
Watch the WasteWatch video
Tracking our WasteWatch progress
To mark WRAP’s annual Food Waste Action Week (17–23 March 2025), Sodexo UK & Ireland has announced that it is on course to meet its goal of cutting food waste by 50% by 2025
Read about our food waste progress
UK Food and Drink Pact
Sodexo are long standing members of the UK Food and Drink Pact; it has voluntarily committed to ambitious goals, led by WRAP
Sign up to the UK Food and Drink Pact

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Our Appetite for Action

In 2021, we launched Appetite for Action. This is an ongoing mission for Sodexo with the goal of using our scale and food industry expertise to convene and work alongside political and industry stakeholders, chefs and customers to drive meaningful change in food service procurement to help cut food waste.

How to change food buying trends to help reduce food waste
We commissioned research among 275 food procurement senior decision-makers across the private and public sector in the UK to understand their thoughts on how food buying trends need to change in order to reduce food waste.
Read about the impact of food buying trends
Roundtable: tackling food waste is urgent to meet sustainability standards
In October 2021, building on the results of the research, we hosted a roundtable of experts including WRAP, WWF and Defra, to discuss how food buying standards can change to reduce food waste and meet the UK's sustainability standards.
Watch a short video from the day
Reducing food waste and carbon emissions in food services
We brought together the results from the research we commissioned and insight from the roundtable to create our Appetite for Action report. This includes strategies for reducing food waste and carbon emissions in food services.
Download the Appetite for Action report

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A holistic approach to achieving net zero and supply chain resilience
With food waste a significant contributor to climate change, the situation has been made worse by recent supply chain challenges, which have resulted in a dramatic increase in food waste. This case study includes some of the key data, but also looks at how cutting food waste and supply chain resilience can be complementary goals.
Read the holistic approach case study
Supply chain challenges caused by world events led to an increase in food waste.
In 2022, we commissioned further research to find out how the unprecedented pressure on supply chains had impacted food buyers’ ability to meet their food waste targets. We visited one of our suppliers, Watts Hill farm to see what work they are doing to ensure supply chain resilience whilst cutting food waste.
Watch the supply chain video
Infographic: The secret to supply chain resilience
So how can resilience be built when pressures are already extraordinary and the future demands a net zero existence? We’ve put together an infographic to show how organisations need a net zero strategy that tackles food waste urgently, but also need agility, flexibility and diversification to navigate current supply chain issues.
Take a look at the supply chain infographic

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Brighton & Hove Albion fans are being fed a lot more sustainably

Reducing food waste is a key part of our sustainability plans and Sodexo Live! is making great progress here in an innovative way.

Food waste from the American Express Stadium has started to be sent to a regenerative farm in West Sussex that the club’s venue partner, Sodexo Live! works with.

Sodexo Live! and Brighton & Hove sustainable farming

Redistributing surplus food to charities and community groups

Since 2005, Sodexo’s Stop Hunger Foundation and FareShare have been working together to address food insecurity and waste. In 2023, they celebrated a significant milestone: the total financial support donated from the Sodexo Stop Hunger Foundation to FareShare reached £1.5 million.

FareShare is the UK’s largest charity fighting hunger and food waste, by saving good food from going to waste and redistributing it to frontline charities and community groups.

This long-standing partnership has been instrumental in covering the logistics costs crucial to FareShare's operations, enabling the charity to expand its surplus food redistribution efforts.

Wasteful to Tasteful – ‘rescuing’ grade B* fruit and veg

30% of crops never leave the farm and go to waste.

Sodexo has joined forces with Waste Knot, which is committed to connecting businesses with surplus food and Ferryfast, a co-operative of farmers in Worcestershire, to distribute boxes of ‘rescued fruit and vegetables’ to our catering teams across the country.

Currently, 100+ of our sites receive the weekly vegetable boxes and monthly fruit boxes.

We have procured 667 tonnes of Grade B vegetables, salad and fruits, this includes our work with Wasteknot, where we have rescued 24 tonnes of fruit and vegetables in the UK in the last 12 months (data accurate May 2023).

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equivalent meals saved

Our WasteWatch programme has prevented food waste equivalent to 2,700,000 meals

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Latest food waste news and insights

Sodexo on track to halve its food waste in the UK and Ireland
Sodexo cutting food waste by 50%
Sodexo food waste campaign wins at Waste2Zero Awards 2022
Sodexo’s Appetite for Action campaign win
Sodexo prevents food waste equivalent to over one million meals
Read more about food waste

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Kitchen Works

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Our social impact

Net zero: sustainable eating

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Net zero: supply chain

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Stop Hunger Foundation

Net Zero 2040: Our fight against food waste

Cutting Our Food Waste by 50%

Tracking food waste to create actionable insights

Reducing food waste across our business

WasteWatch in action in Health & Care

Tracking our WasteWatch progress

UK Food and Drink Pact

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Our Appetite for Action

How to change food buying trends to help reduce food waste

Roundtable: tackling food waste is urgent to meet sustainability standards

Reducing food waste and carbon emissions in food services

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A holistic approach to achieving net zero and supply chain resilience

Supply chain challenges caused by world events led to an increase in food waste.

Infographic: The secret to supply chain resilience

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Brighton & Hove Albion fans are being fed a lot more sustainably

Redistributing surplus food to charities and community groups

Wasteful to Tasteful – ‘rescuing’ grade B* fruit and veg

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Latest food waste news and insights

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Reducing food waste across our business

WasteWatch in action in Health & Care

Tracking our WasteWatch progress

UK Food and Drink Pact

How to change food buying trends to help reduce food waste

Roundtable: tackling food waste is urgent to meet sustainability standards

Reducing food waste and carbon emissions in food services

A holistic approach to achieving net zero and supply chain resilience

Supply chain challenges caused by world events led to an increase in food waste.

Infographic: The secret to supply chain resilience

Wasteful to Tasteful – ‘rescuing’ grade B* fruit and veg

Latest food waste news and insights