Company Shop Group reveals the true scale of its surplus meat redistribution, showing how one of the toughest challenges in food waste prevention can be overcome.
Company Shop Group has revealed new figures highlighting the scale of its impact in raw meat redistribution. Over the past five years, the UK’s leading redistributor of surplus stock has stopped 39 million units of raw meat from going to waste – with redistribution volumes growing by 50% in the last three years.
With raw meat being one of the most resource-intensive foods to produce, the potential lost value from waste is significant, highlighting the need for efficient capture and redistribution of surplus.
However, with strict food safety and traceability rules in place, alongside requirements for labelling and packaging, meat producers have limited options for compliant redistribution of their products. These barriers mean that large volumes of meat, despite being perfectly edible, could routinely be discarded, resulting in the loss of significant embedded carbon, water and land resources, as well as untapped commercial potential.
To tackle this, Company Shop Group provides an end-to-end surplus redistribution model, from surplus identification on factory lines, to relabelling, chilled transport and sale through its Surplus Supermarkets and Community Shops. With full product traceability throughout the process, this service provides partners with a complete solution to capture surplus and have it safely on sale in stores within hours – addressing one of the biggest headaches around short life products.
This model delivers a triple return: cutting environmental impacts, protecting financial value for supply chain partners, and creating social benefits by making quality food affordable for more people.
Holly Mobley, Commercial Director at Company Shop Group, said: “Rescuing 39 million units of surplus meat is a significant milestone in one of the hardest areas of surplus to access. Raw meat is highly regulated and perishable, but by building the right systems and expertise we’ve shown it can be recovered safely and at scale. Each recovery prevents valuable natural resources from being wasted, while also helping our partners retain financial value.
“Surplus stock is too often viewed as ‘waste’. But, by thinking differently and seeing it for what it is – a valuable asset – we can help organisations transform product loss and redirect it to where it was originally intended… on people’s plates.”
Furthermore, Company Shop Group’s surplus experts work with partners to embed specialists into production sites to identify where additional waste is occurring, which could also be captured as surplus.
A six-month pilot programme with Pilgrim’s Europe – a leading UK and European food company and long-standing Company Shop Group partner – illustrates how this works in practice. Working closely with site managers, Company Shop Group identified surplus product streams which were then used to create a new range of ‘own label’ products.
The six-month pilot programme resulted in:
98 tonnes of surplus pork recovered
More than 108,000 packs of fresh meat created
A 25% increase in redistribution from the site
This same surplus capture model is now being used across other raw meat operations, including beef and poultry, where it is continuing to help manufacturers reduce waste, lower emissions and recover commercial value from previously lost products.
