With 25-30% of the world’s food produced lost or wasted – Compass Group says addressing food waste has never been so important. Stop Food Waste Day was launched by Compass Group USA with the aim of raising awareness around reducing food waste.
Compass Group UK & Ireland aims to stop food waste through preventing, recovering and recycling. The company continues to roll out and evolve its digital recording system, which measures waste in up to five categories providing data and insight into the source of waste to help tackle it.
Ashleigh Taylor, head of environment at Compass Group UK & Ireland, commented: “Reducing food waste is a central focus to our business, teams and clients all year round. Saving food brings with it commercial benefits, but it is crucial in creating a more sustainable way of operating. Stop Food Waste Day is a time to highlight the issue of food waste, to share ideas and raise further awareness both internally and externally.”
Within the UK & Ireland business, 2025 Stop Food Waste Day activities included:
- Chartwells – hosted pop ups, assemblies and workshops taking place across the week within schools, universities and colleges to educate and inform young people.
- CH&CO - has delivered Sustainability Training for Culinary Experts across its brands, which includes a focus on food waste with each participant creating five viable actions to take back to their site and implement.
- Compass One including ESS, Healthcare, One Retail and White Oaks – has launched its Future Food sustainability engagement programme. Developed specifically for frontline colleagues, it aims to drive the knowledge and skills required to support and drive change.
- EES – it has a partnership with Olio to redistribute good-to-eat surplus food to local communities.
- Eurest and 14forty – challenged people to look in their fridge at home and use leftovers as the basis for a healthy meal.
- Foodbuy Group – making progress towards the team achieving 1,000 volunteering hours with FareShare (610 hours have been completed so far).
- Levy UK + Ireland – launched a food waste recipe competition on Earth Day (22nd April) about innovative ways to save food from going in the bin.
- Restaurant Associates – organised a Sustainability Conference, where senior chefs showcased inspiring zero-waste recipes.
- Compass Ireland – served Stop Food Waste Day recipes across the business, accompanied by fact sheets and recipe cards within sites.
- Compass – hosted food waste focussed suppliers at its head office in Chertsey and served specially created food waste menus for colleagues in its Parklands and Chertsey offices.
Nick Male, executive chef at Unity Place in Milton Keynes, added: “We work hard all year round to minimise waste across everything we do – from prep to plate. It’s a constant effort, but it’s one we believe in.
“From our day-to-day preparation to the occasional special dish or reuse initiative, we take a considered approach to food waste across Unity Place. Stop Food Waste Day is a good opportunity to highlight some of those quieter efforts and show how even small amounts of surplus can be put to good use.”