Tesco has said that it generated almost 30,000 tonnes of food waste in the first six months  of the year, 41% of which was made up of bakery items and 21% fruit and vegetables.

Dairy products and convenience foods such as ready meals each made up 8% of the waste, impulse buys such as confectionery and soft drinks accounted for 6%, and meat, fish and poultry for 5%.

Tesco has committed to addressing the problem of wasted food through new policies such as ending its multi-buy offers on products such as bags of salad, of which 68% was thrown away in the last six months.