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The Co-op is set to launch a new platform which aims to help retailers reduce food waste and is currently being trialled in some of its own stores.
Founding partners Co-op and Microsoft, supported by technology consultancy BJSS and Team ITG, have created the platform – named Caboodle – a not-for-profit digital platform that aims to enable “supermarkets, cafés and restaurants to connect with community groups and volunteers to redistribute surplus food”.
The platform, which is currently being trialled in Co-op’s food stores in Northern Ireland, Milton Keynes and London goes live next month across a further 2,500 food stores.
In the UK around 1.1 million tonnes of food goes to waste across the food retail and hospitality sector annually.
Built on Microsoft’s power platform technology, Caboodle aims to create a single place where food retailers and businesses across the hospitality sector can “connect with volunteers and community groups in every city, town and village in the UK, helping to share food when and where it is needed”.
Shirine Khoury-Haq, interim CEO of the Co-op, said: “The amount of good quality surplus food that’s not currently being redistributed is astounding.
“We’re currently trialling caboodle in over 100 food stores and the results we’re seeing so far are incredible. We’ll be rolling it out across our entire estate next month and hope that all other retailers and businesses within hospitality will see the benefit too. ”
