Supermarket’s green bid to turn out-of-date food to electricity

SUPERMARKET food will be converted into electricity as part of a recycling scheme set to go live at Sidmouth’s branch of Waitrose on Sunday.

Green-minded bosses at the Stowford Rise store will send off not fit for sale groceries to power a Devon pig farm.

A recycling centre at the site will then transform the out-of-date groceries into electricity to power the farm.

Any excess electricity will be sold to the national grid, while any leftover liquid will be used to make fertilizer which the farm will use on its fields.

Waitrose chiefs hope to reduce the amount the firm sends to landfill by 50 per cent as a result of the scheme.

Andy Roddy, Waitrose Sidmouth department manager, said: “As the first national food retailer to fully sign up to this food waste recycling scheme, Waitrose is leading the way in taking steps to reduce our carbon footprint.

“It means that any food that is out of date or damaged is put back in to the system rather than just thrown away.”

Nationally, Waitrose wants its 190 stores to process waste in this way by the end of November.