Meal-kit delivery company HelloFresh wants to halve food waste by the end of the year and aims for 60 % fewer carbon emissions. The company is also working on smart shelf-life indicators.
5,000 tons of leftovers
HelloFresh claims to have reduced the amount of food waste by a third last year, from 0.6 to 0.4 grams per euro of turnover. In total, the company still had almost 5,000 tonnes of leftovers, mainly due to cancelled orders and leftover ingredients after production. 73 % of the waste was donated to food banks and other charities.
The company is striving to become the first carbon-neutral meal-kit delivery company. Last year, the company tackled the emissions from the distribution centres, which resulted in a reduction from 9.3 to 4.1 grams per euro of turnover. HelloFresh switched to renewable energy, improved operational efficiency and invested in solar panels.
Growing responsibility
Now the company wants to start compensating for its remaining direct emissions, both from internal activities and deliveries to customers. Moreover, HelloFresh wants to continue to offset emissions and says its goal remains to reduce the effective emissions in the distribution centres by 60 % by 2022.
“Our responsibility for the planet has grown alongside our company’s size over the past year, and therefore our sustainability agenda remains ambitious”, co-founder Thomas Griesel says. The goals of the company are in line with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
Smart shelf life indicator
To combat food waste, HelloFresh has started working together with the Dutch Wageningen University & Research, which has developed a smart shelf life indicator called ‘Keep-it’. The label measures the temperature of the storage environment and calculates the actual shelf life of the product. The Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality is currently examining the system, with the possibility of intending to replace traditional best-before labels in due course.
Furthermore, HelloFresh wants to improve its packaging and its supply chain to reduce food waste. By the end of this year, it wants to halve the amount of food that goes to landfills or is incinerated, at least per euro turnover. Meanwhile, the carbon footprint of the production facilities should be reduced by 60 % per euro turnover.
