Supermarket giant Tesco wants more entrepreneurs to get on board with its crowdfunding platform BackIt, which helps small businesses get key funding for their innovative products that help decrease food waste.
Hannah McCollum, founder of ChicP, is the first entrepreneur to make use of the platform. She is raising £5,000 to help market her hummus made from imperfect vegetables that may otherwise get refused or discarded by supermarkets.
Originally from London, she found out about the proliferation of food waste while cooking her way across Europe as a private chef and later working with catering and event companies.
“I hate wasting food, and I know I’m not the only one. Creating ChicP has enabled me to combine my desire to reduce food waste with being able to produce delicious, healthy hummus," she commented.
ChicP is one of five start-ups currently taking advantage of the scheme, which have been given the chance to work with a large retailer to scale up ideas, and get advice from industry mentors.
ChicP is available in many London establishments including Sonny’s Kitchen, Krystal’s Fulham, and the Rude Health Café.
Michael Francis, Tesco's business development director, said: “We are really excited to welcome ChicP to BackIt and to offer people the chance to support an innovative and brilliant food waste solving business.
"Food waste is something that Tesco takes very seriously and is an issue that we have a responsibility to work together to solve. It’s businesses like ChicP that will help us do just that."
Tesco has pledged that no food fit for human consumption will be disposed of at its stores by 2017.
Its 'wonky veg' line Perfectly Imperfect has been very successful.
© 2016 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Karen Henderson. To subscribe to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine, click here.
