Company Shop

Headquartered in Barnsley, South Yorkshire, the Company Shop Group has a business model which puts environmental and social purpose at its heart. It prevents waste by identifying surplus products and then collecting, processing and redistributing them for sale through its unique network of membership-based stores, whilst ensuring compliance with stringent food safety standards. Surplus products include production overruns, trial products, or produce that has been incorrectly labelled or packaged which without intervention would be destined to become waste. The Group redistributed over 225m products over the last three years, and is growing its non-food related capacity, with over 4.5m non-food items handled per year. The membership base of Company Shop stores comprises of employees working in the FMCG supply chain, the emergency services, NHS and the armed forces. The Group's sustainable investment strategy has seen the number of Company Shop stores double since September 2019, to a total of 12 across England and Scotland. The Group also operates an award-winning social enterprise, Community Shop, a not-for-profit community interest company with a network of six community hubs supporting some of the most deprived areas of UK. Supported by donations from supplier partners, Community Shop provides its members with vital access to deeply discounted food, as well as life-changing learning and development programmes. The announcement comes on the eve of the inaugural Food Waste Action Week, a WRAP initiative which seeks to wake the nation up to the environmental consequences of wasting food. The acquisition of Company Shop Group is part of a series of investments which strengthens Biffa's leadership position in the UK circular economy and will help unlock further innovation and expand Biffa's capability to support its customers' waste reduction and recycling targets.