Lidl Turns Unsellable Food Into Animal Feed in First-of-Its-Kind Dutch Pilot
Lidl is testing whether expired meal salads, fruit and grain products can be converted into pig feed instead of being sent for biogas production. If the trial succeeds, Lidl hopes to prevent 10 million kilograms of food waste per year.
Lidl Nederland has launched a pilot in ten of its stores to convert food that can no longer be sold or donated into animal feed. The four-week trial, which the chain says is the first of its kind in Europe for mixed food streams, is part of Lidl's wider goal to halve food waste by 2030.
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How the pilot works
The ten participating stores are collecting their unsold and expired food products separately over a period of four weeks. The company FeedValid then processes the collected food into pig feed.
The products involved include fruit and vegetables, meal salads and grain products. They are items that can no longer be sold and are also no longer suitable for donation to the food bank. Under normal circumstances, these products would be sent for fermentation to produce biogas. Lidl says this is the first time such a mixed stream of food products is being used in this way. The chain already converts leftover bread into animal feed, but this trial extends the approach to a broader range of products.
Why it matters
By converting these leftover streams into animal feed rather than sending them to biogas production, Lidl aims to reduce dependence on conventional feed ingredients such as soy and maize, which put pressure on scarce agricultural land. The company describes this as a system-level change in which residual streams are no longer treated as waste but as a valuable raw material.
If the pilot succeeds, Lidl expects to be able to prevent up to 10 million kilograms of food waste per year, the equivalent of more than 330 fully loaded lorries. "We are going to find out whether we can produce good quality animal feed," a spokeswoman said.
The bigger picture
Lidl already has several initiatives aimed at cutting food waste, including its Verspil Mij Niet scheme, which offers products on their last day of shelf life for 25 or 50 cents, and donations of fruit and vegetables to food banks. By 2024, the chain had already reduced its food waste by 32 percent compared to 2018. The pilot with FeedValid is intended as the next step toward the chain's 50 percent reduction target by 2030.
