WRAP Winner in the Footprint Awards 2014

Last week WRAP won the prestigious Footprint Award for Stakeholder Engagement. Few in the sector can have missed the message that WRAP have been getting out there about food waste (in short the fact that 1:6 meals produced ends up in the bin, costing the ‘average’ hospitality and food service business a whopping £10,000 per annum).

It’s one of those issues that really can deliver benefits to the triple bottom line: Financial (increasing profitability for businesses), Social (providing a practical way of tackling food poverty) and Environmental (reducing methane and carbon emission and conserving resources for future generations).

RHP can share a little in WRAP’s success. Over the past year RHP and its Associates have been keen supporters of the Hospitality & Food Service Agreement. RHP have been providing recruitment support, training & consulting resources, and coordinating the Working Groups in which stakeholders meet to discuss progress in implementing the Agreement and the support necessary to help signatories meet the targets.

For the uninitiated, the Hospitality and Food Service Agreement (HaFSA) is a Voluntary Agreement that aims to meet national targets for waste reduction in a way that delivers maximum benefit to the industry. Voluntary Agreements are the Government’s preferred route to meet environmental objectives because of this mutual benefit. The HaFSA has the following targets (these are owned by WRAP and delivered collectively by the hospitality and food service businesses that sign up to the agreement):

• Prevention target: Reduce food and associated packaging waste arising by 5% by the end of 2015. This will be against a 2012 baseline and be measured by CO2e emissions.

• Waste management target: Increase the overall rate of food and packaging waste being recycled, sent to anaerobic digestion (AD) or composted to at least 70% by the end of 2015.

These ambitious goals can only be achieved through stakeholder engagement. The Footprint Award is a fantastic celebration of WRAP’s success in this area.

The judges of the award said that…

“Stakeholder Engagement is hard to measure and this category is all about the most effective engagement programme aimed at stakeholders both inside and outside of the business. Judges focused on communication plans and execution, demonstrable buy-in, availability, format and channels of engagement, activities and recognition.” Source:www.foodservicefootprint.com/news/footprint-awards-2014-winners

When congratulated Brendan Hunter, Key Account Manager at WRAP, identified that the award didn’t just belong to them, he felt the whole team deserved it as everyone had a part to play its success – so well done to you all.

If you would like to find out more how you can get involved more or need more advice on food and packaging waste in general please get in touch on 0845 591635 or contact us now!