Waste not, want not

As the issue of food wastage takes the spotlight, Joyce Yip takes a look at how supermarkets are quietly and successfully adding this must-have CSR to their branding strategy.

Whether it be the much-debated landfill issue or the government TVC of a weird-looking stomach rapping to a song against leftovers, food wastage is in the spotlight again as existing landfill space threatens to run out much earlier than expected.

While the focus of the debate in Hong Kong has been on finding the optimal location for the garbage spillover, green charity Friends of the Earth has been pointing a finger at supermarkets as one of the biggest sources of overflowing waste.

In a report released by the NGO last year, it accused AEON, ParknShop, Wellcome and CR Vanguard of throwing out 87 tonnes of leftover food every day.

Although this year’s report revealed the latter three companies had showed substantial improvements in food donations, Friends of the Earth continued to slam AEON for blaming its inaction on being stuck in a so-called “evaluation” stage for an entire year. (AEON later rebutted to say it had been actively participating in tree planting and book recycling activities and had recently partnered with a food bank organised by The Conservancy Association in a housing estate in Tsuen Wan.)

ParkNShop, which was praised by Friends of the Earth for its activities in donating since its last review, on the other hand, recently publicised its two-year relationship with food bank Food Angel in its campaigns themed around its 40th anniversary.
Whatever their stance, CSR has evolved from an add-on to an inevitable must-have for supermarkets to avoid bad press; the challenge, however, is to keep mum so their efforts don’t seem like they’re for show.

“We’re very careful with CSR because you genuinely need to do it with heart and effort. So we want to prevent people from labelling it as something we’re doing for marketing,” says ParkNShop’s marketing director of Greater China, Jessica To, whose one outlet partnered with Food Angel last year to contribute fresh food. Its footprint now expands to 55 shops and includes meat, loose bakery items and packaged foods.

“We’re very careful about what we donate, yet we were always keen to donate fresh food as that’s what the bank needed the most. For ParkNShop, we believe the more you waste, the more green you lose. No corporation will throw their money away,” she says.

Although the quantity of food is sourced according to each outlet’s demand, To says shops have the flexibility to reduce the product’s price after a certain shelf life; when it still doesn’t get sold before expiration, it will be donated to Food Angel.
“But these foods are still very much edible: we’re talking about a bit of scratched skin on the apple or oranges with drier skin. We’d donate.”

Why supermarkets are so reluctant to give away food, explained the president of global consumer practice and chief officer of purpose branding at Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide, Mitch Markson, can be attributed to several reasons: issues of health and sanitation of the donated food as well as the fear of customers thinking what they had paid for was being given out for free. Yet, he says, it’s all a matter of packaging.

“The CSR push could be an interesting chance for supermarkets to educate consumers on food wastage. And rather than putting an image of poor people, who don’t have food, over their marketing image of prestige, success and wealth, they can turn it into a message of sharing and that the supermarket is not just about its label, but about moving on and partaking of social responsibility.”

Despite that, he admits a lot of CSR agendas begin as an effort to mitigate risks and avoid bad publicity, but says they are, nonetheless, good starting points to “enduring and lasting community values” on the prerequisite that “supermarkets embrace these strategies as ongoing ideas”.

“If supermarkets do it once, it’s a gimmick, but if they make it a part of their whole ethos, if they involve the entire community, then they become educators, but not in a preachy way.”

While Markson agrees with To these good-hearted efforts may be perceived as marketing tricks, he says food donation is an acceptable and believable CSR extension.

“We’re not talking about writing a cheque or doing something that will ruin their bottom line. The choice is obvious.”