Food that was discarded in Brugsen’s grocery stores last year had a value of DKK 11.6 million. This appears from the company’s sustainability report for 2025. The company’s working group, which must work for less food waste, has temporarily paused its work.
Kalaallit Nunaanni Brugseni has a total of 16 grocery stores in Nuuk, Ilulissat, Sisimiut, Qaqortoq, Maniitsoq, Narsaq, Nanortalik and Paamiut.
The company is not allowed to sell all the food it puts up for sale. Some food must be thrown away, they write in their sustainability report for 2025. Last year, Brugseni threw out food to the value of 11.6 million kroner.
– Food waste not only represents a financial loss, but also has significant environmental consequences, writes the company.
The result in 2025 is worse compared to the previous year, i.e. 2024. The value of the food that the company discarded in 2024 was two million kroner lower, i.e. around 9 million kroner.
– This is due to a mixture of lack of follow-up on internal disposition routines as well as natural growth due to significantly increasing turnover and thus more goods sold.
KNB currently has no estimate of how many kilos or tonnes of discarded food products are involved.
– We do not yet have internal processes to measure food waste from our stores by weight, writes Brugseni.
Initiative stopped
It appears from the report that the company, with around 31,600 members, is still unsure of how best to improve work to reduce food waste.
– We have temporarily paused the work in the previously mentioned working group for less food waste, as we await an updated strategy for sustainability in the company. We expect that the new strategy will create a stronger foundation for future initiatives in the area.
Nevertheless, among the initiatives to date, special cooling solutions for goods close to their expiry date and distribution as animal feed are mentioned.
Sermitsiaq also wrote about food waste in Pilersuisoq on Tuesday. The self-governed company KNI’s grocery chain also threw out food worth DKK 11.2 million in its most recent accounting period.
