Why a campaign to prevent food waste at Norway Cup?

 Food waste is indeed very damaging for the climate, as it accounts for 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions. That’s why we are putting focus on food waste under this year’s edition of Norway Cup, through our campaign that encourages you to eat up your food. 

How does Norway Cup work to reduce food waste?

Norway Cup is constantly looking for new solutions that reduce the amount of waste in the tournament. We know that our young participants are more aware of sustainability and good environmental solutions - and they are also clear and uncompromising in their expectations - so we and our partners must deliver.

In our dining hall for participants - "the world's largest restaurant" - we serve food according to how hungry the participants are, and not according to how much we assume they will eat. To reduce food waste, we have reduced the size of both plates and drinking glasses, which means smaller portions are being served. 

Norway Cup has also started a collaboration with institutions that can help us make use of left-over food. This year Kirkens Bymisjon is our collaborating partner.

We are especially looking forward to organizing this year’s campaign - in partnership with KIWI – to raise awareness around food waste. By doing this we hope to make our 30.000 participants and volunteers contribute to reduce food waste in the tournament.

How does KIWI work to reduce food waste?

Of the 417,000 tons edible food thrown away each year in Norway, the grocery industry accounts for 15 percent food waste, while as much as 55 percent of the waste takes place in people’s households. 

KIWI is Norway’s biggest grocery store chain, and we have therefore a responsibility to both reduce our own food waste, as well as to help our customers throw away less food at home. But what about us? When it comes to our shops, we have already reduced our food waste by 48% since 2015. We are therefor on track to achieve our goal of 60% food waste reduction by 2025.

Here are some of the measures we have been working on:

Optimizing order systems

The most important thing KIWI can do to reduce food waste is to facilitate the best possible flow of goods. We do this by making sure we have the right amount of food on the store shelves at all times, so that we avoid anything being wasted. We work continuously to improve our order and forecast systems, which help us to have the best possible flow of goods.

Discounting near-expired food

At KIWI you can buy discounted items with a short expiration date in all our shops. This measure is popular with our customers and has for many years helped us to reduce food waste. We are constantly working to expand this solution to more product groups, and we are testing various alternatives for how our customers can save products that have a short shelf life. In addition to this, we are developing a date alert system that will help our employees find the items that are about to expire and price them down.

Surplus food to animal feed and biogas production

If food expires or gets bad before we managed to sell it, discount it or donate it, we at KIWI do everything we can to make sure it goes to animal feed production, or as the last resort, to biogas production, instead of being thrown away. Today, all our surplus bread and baked goods from our stores become animal feed. We are working to find such a solution for other types of food as well. In the meantime, 83 percent of our stores now deliver their food waste to biogas production, and the goal is to expand the solution to all our stores in the near future.

Reducing food waste is both the right thing to do, and a crucial step in fighting climate change. While being proud of our results so far, we acknowledge we still have a long way to go. You can keep you updated on our progress at https://kiwi.no/tema/samfunnsansvar/miljo/matsvinn/ (in Norwegian).