Food service wholesaler Brakes has won the Unilever Community Award in the IGD Food Industry Awards 2011.
Brakes scooped the accolade, awarded to companies that demonstrate they are “doing well by doing good”, for its working partnership with Fareshare, a charity that supplies quality food to homeless and vulnerable people across the UK.
Brakes linked up with Fareshare in March 2010 and now donates the equivalent of 80,000 meals a month to Fareshare through its UK depot network, diverting more than 324 tonnes of food waste from landfill.
The group was also shortlisted as a finalist in the Sustainable Distribution category (won by Nestlé) for its ‘road to rail’ transport delivery initiative. It claims this project, which moves products between its central distribution centre and its Scottish depots and suppliers, represents the largest use of rail in the foodservice sector.
Other food service winners were:
DHL Supply Chain
The Employability Award by Asda
For establishing work opportunities for prisoners as part of a contract to supply and manage the distribution of canteen food to 80,000 prisoners across 137 prisons
Burton’s Foods
Boxwood Award for Business Transformation
For a business reorganisation that reinvorgorated some ‘tired and unloved’ brands
Mars Chocolate UK
The Co-Operative Award for Ethical Responsibilty
For its investment in a project to release the preliminary cacao genome sequence into the public domain
Nestlé UK and Eddie Stobart
ECR Award For Sustainable Distribution
For a pilot scheme to field test three cutting-edge Volvo methane/diesel dual-fuel trucks
Kraft Foods
General Mills Award for Consumer Understanding
For the development of Kenco’s Wholebean Instant, an instant coffee with the quality and taste of roast and ground
Barfoots of Botley
Tetra Pak Environmental Sustainability Award
For the vegetable supplier’s development of anaerobic digestion for energy generation within the farming and food industry