Dairy Crest, the leading UK-owned dairy processor, has joined up with other food companies to support the Institute of Grocers and Distributors (IGD) "Working on Waste" campaign to tackle food waste.

Working on Waste is bringing together food and grocery companies throughout October in a co-ordinated bid to talk directly to their employees as consumers to reduce household food waste.

As part of the campaign, Dairy Crest is hosting a roadshow in Davidstow, North Cornwall today, offering a unique opportunity for companies to come together and discuss the issues surrounding household food waste.

Employees from Dairy Crest, Marks & Spencer, DCD, Stapleton Farm, Rodda’s, Leatherhead Food Research, Kensey Foods, Vegware and WRAP will be attending today’s roadshow.

Today’s event is one of nine roadshows taking place across the country during October and form a fundamental part of the Working on Waste campaign, in collaboration with WRAP.

In addition to hosting the first round table discussion at the Davistow Creamery, Dairy Crest will be using its joint sponsorship of the Boscastle Art and Food Festival, which starts on the 3 October, to spread the ‘Working on Waste’ messages and will be raising awareness of food waste to its staff through a variety of innovative internal events.

In total the IGDs campaign is set to reach around 650,000 employees working in the industry across 107 FMCG and associated companies during the month of October.

Collectively, the campaign activity will result in:

• Around 600,000 employees receiving ‘Top Tips’ on reducing household food waste
• 12,000+ employees involved in ‘Leftover Lunch Day’
• 180,000 employees being provided with access to Love Food Hate Waste meal planners
• 100,000 using WRAP’s food waste diaries
• 280,000 participating in the leftovers recipe challenge

Joanne Denney-Finch, chief executive, IGD says:

“A lot of progress has been made already by companies across the industry to help consumers reduce household food waste. However, seven million tonnes of food and drink is still being thrown away by UK homes every year, costing consumers £12.5bn – so there’s more work to be done.

Pivotal to this campaign is inviting companies from across the supply chain to come together under the same roof at our roundtable roadshows to explore all the ways in which the industry can work together in this area.

I’m thrilled that companies of all sizes are supporting this campaign, demonstrating how serious they are about tackling food waste in homes. Through this scale, collaboration and power of our industry, we have the potential to make a substantial impact collectively in reducing household food waste in the UK.”

Mark Allen, CEO of Dairy Crest says:

“Food is valuable and precious – and it takes a lot of effort from a lot of different people to get it from farm to fridge. Through this ground breaking collaborative effort led by the IGD we hope that together we’ll be able to help reduce the amount of household food that's needlessly thrown away.

To get the campaign off to a positive start we are pleased to be hosting the very first roundtable discussion at our Creamery in Davidstow, North Cornwall which will bring together food experts, local dairy farmers and leading retailers and food manufacturers and we’ll be using our joint sponsorship of this weekend’s Boscastle Festival to highlight the importance of valuing the food produced in Cornwall and the South West“