Food waste
Food makes a significant impact on the environment – around 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions come from the decomposition of discarded food. Our goal is to halve the amount of food waste by 2025. The amount of food waste generated in 2022 totalled 316,000 tonnes. 5,637.95 tonnes of food waste was sent for recycling, up 16% YoY.
Our food waste reduction initiatives
- Optimising procurement
- Increasing the amount of waste sent for recycling
- Handing over expired food products to third parties
- Donating products before their shelf life expires to charitable causes.
About 18 million tonnes of food waste are produced in Russia each year. Almost a third of this is waste from retail and catering organisations. The proportion of food waste in landfill sites is as high as 25.6%. This waste not only increases the landfill area – it also makes other types of waste unsuitable for recycling.
At the same time 20 million Russians spend more than 5% of their income on food, and nearly 9 million people do not have enough money for the basic food
The carbon footprint of food waste comes close to 64 million tonnes of
To cut food losses, reduce the amount of food waste that is disposed of or landfilled, and minimise the impact on the environment, as well as help disadvantaged groups and promote volunteering, we launched the Retail Food Sharing project.
Food sharing is a service that helps distribute expiring foodstuffs to socially disadvantaged groups. Retail Food Sharing means that small but regular amounts of foodstuffs from stores 1–2 days before the expiry date are distributed, with the support of volunteers from partner non-profits.
According to expert estimates, by 2024, with the introduction of food sharing practices, retailers could prevent about 1 million tonnes of food from being wasted each year. This would help 1.3 million people in need and prevent 143,000 tonnes of methane emissions.
In 2022, Magnit signed a project cooperation agreement with the Foodbank Rus charitable foundation. It helps us donate expiring products to those in need. Food sharing kicked off in Moscow, the Moscow region and St Petersburg. Every day, employees of Magnit’s dark store picked quality foodstuffs that could not be sold before the expiry date, sorted them into categories, and, with the help of volunteers from the Foodbank Rus Foundation, gave them to single pensioners, large families, and other eligible categories.
The food sharing project covered 30 of Magnit’s dark stores. In the reporting year, the total amount of food donated exceeded 20 tonnes, and more than 11,000 people received the aid. A total of 260 volunteers took part in the initiative. Our food sharing project came second in the Eco-Efficiency category of the People Investor competition.
In 2023, we intend to expand the project by rolling it out in three to five Magnit hypermarkets, all new dark stores, as well as DIXY stores in the Moscow region.
In the reporting year, the Group’s food waste generation increased by 7.7% due to the expansion of Magnit retail chain. However, the Group’s specific waste generation decreased by 12.3% compared to 2021 and by 52.5% compared to the 2019 base year (309.85 kg per RUB mln). This resulted from our consistent efforts to manage waste generation, including increasing the share of waste sent for recycling, and better procurement.