Lidl Italia has launched the ‘anti-waste bag’, a project that offers fruit and vegetables that do not meet aesthetic standards but are still good quality, are safe to eat, or have damaged packaging, at a discount rate.
The initiative, which has been rolled out to all 730 Lidl stores throughout Italy, enabling customers to contribute to food waste reduction by purchasing discounted bags of fruit and vegetables that don't meet the company's commercial standards.
Anti-waste bags are prepared daily by store employees, and are placed inside a trolley dedicated to this purpose in the area behind the checkouts, the discounter said.
Each anti-waste bag contains four kilograms of fruit and vegetables and can be purchased for the fixed price of €3. The number of bags each store packages varies according to the daily availability of suitable produce.
'Conscious Consumption'
“Thanks to our anti-waste bag, we intend to promote more conscious consumption, raising awareness among our customers who have grasped the spirit of the initiative, demonstrating their appreciation for it it right away," commented Massimiliano Silvestri, president of Lidl Italia.
The introduction of anti-waste bags is part of the broader ‘Too Good To Waste’ project launched by Lidl in 2019, which offers targeted discounts to encourage the sale of products that are approaching their expiry date.
At the same time, Lidl said that it continuously optimises the order, storage, and rotation of products, while a program for the donation of surplus food is already underway in collaboration with the Banco Alimentare Onlus Foundation.
This project, entitled 'Beyond the trolley - Lidl against waste', has led to the recovery of over 31,000 tonnes of food, equivalent to 62 million meals.
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