Retailer Seven-Eleven Japan Co will recycle unsold lunch and other food products at its convenience store chain in Tokyo into feed for livestock.
To do this, the biggest convenience store chain in Japan has tied up with AgriGaia System Co in Yachimata, Chiba Prefecture, which will send trucks to all of some 1,000 Seven-Eleven stores in Tokyo's 23 wards every day to collect food products unsold beyond expiry dates.
Recycle-loop
Seven-Eleven Japan President Toshiro Yamaguchi said the company will consider using meat from pigs and chickens fed under the program in lunch and other food products for sale at the store chain so as to "establish a recycle loop." The retailer operates a nationwide network of about 11,730 convenience stores as of 2006. Each generates some 15 kilograms of garbage per day.