Stop Food Waste Day: why measurement matters as much as motivation
As Head of Environment at Compass Group UK & Ireland, I’m proud that we’re tackling waste across food, packaging and recycling. It is not just an operational priority for us, it’s a core part of our responsibility to drive meaningful environmental change.
Stop Food Waste Day is an important moment to pause, reflect on progress, and recommit to the next steps.
Food waste matters because it’s avoidable emissions, wasted water and land, and needless cost. When we throw food away, we also throw away the resources used to grow, process, transport and store it - often for no benefit at all. In a food system under pressure, reducing waste is one of the fastest, most practical ways we can cut environmental impact.
Progress to date
Food waste prevention has been a strategic priority for years, demonstrated by our global Stop Food Waste Day initiative, which will celebrate its 10th year in 2026. Over the last three years we’ve rolled out bespoke food waste tracking technology, giving our teams better, faster insight into what’s being wasted and why. In FY25 we took another significant step by introducing a food waste reduction KPI linked to remuneration. Even within an already mature and established programme, we achieved an 8% reduction in waste in a single year measured as kg per site per day.
How we’re changing the way we measure food waste
As our business evolves, we’re refining our measurement to track food waste cost relative to food purchase value. This approach is designed to keep our reporting transparent and comparable over time, while sharpening the commercial lens, so teams can see the true value of waste and prioritise the actions that make the biggest difference.
Because this is a new way of recording food waste, we’re taking the time to understand what the data is telling us before setting a longer-term target. For FY26, our commitment is clear: achieve a 5% reduction in food waste against a FY25 baseline. We’ll use the improved dataset to set a stretching, results-driven target that continues to reduce food waste and drive behaviour change across the business.
We’re not doing this alone. As a long-standing member of WRAP’s UK Food and Drink Pact, we have worked closely with WRAP to strengthen our approach, supporting us to develop new food waste measurement methodologies and giving us access to valuable resources and shared insights. This really shows what we can achieve when we share knowledge and expertise.
Our teams work incredibly hard to reduce food waste, but sometimes it is unavoidable. This is where our amazing redistribution partners come in - we are continuing to build on our work with organisations such as Fareshare, Olio and Too Good to Go. This makes sure that when we have surplus food, it’s used to support local communities. In 2025 this saw us redistribute over 254,000 meals to charity and these partnerships continue to thrive.
On Stop Food Waste Day, my message is simple: ambition needs evidence. By combining the passion and ingenuity of our teams with better measurement and strong partnerships, we can keep driving down waste, cutting emissions and costs, and making a practical contribution to a more sustainable food system.
Estelle Herszenhorn, Director of Food System Transformation at WRAP, said: “As a long-standing member of WRAP’s UK Food and Drink Pact, Compass Group UK & Ireland asked us to help develop a new approach to food waste measurement to strengthen their existing monitoring and reporting of food waste. Our shared aim was not only to improve accuracy and accountability, but also to deepen understanding of the environmental and commercial impact associated with wasted food. We’re delighted that our technical guidance helped Compass design and adopt a results driven methodology that informs impactful, efficient targets - while staying fully aligned with Pact reporting. We’re confident this approach will enable teams to act - cutting food waste, reducing environmental impact and lowering costs and delivering a clear return on investment as the business continues to grow responsibly.”
