Reducefoodwaste

The aim of reducing food waste is present on different political levels. Beginning with the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations, of which number 12.3 aims to halve the amount of food waste by 2030, also the specialized UN agency Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) deals with the topic of food waste and food losses. According to the FAO food loss and waste have immense negative environmental impacts on account of water, land, energy and other natural resources used for food that no one consumes. A higher level of processing and refining of the food products or the stage (upstream or downstream) in the food supply chain at which the food is wasted increases the negative impact of food waste or loss.

On a national level a lot of countries do have their own Food Waste Strategies for achieving the objectives of the SDG’s. For example the European countries Germany and Sweden recently renewed and published their strategies on how to halve the amount of food wasted. Other countries do not implemented a specific strategy or national plan for food waste reduction, but deal with the topic in in their National Waste Plans. In Finland the Ministry of the Environment published in 2018 the new edition of the “National Waste Plan to 2023”. Part of it deals with the topic of food waste in Finland.

On local levels different actions take place. Since food waste is directly associated with the loss of financial resources, companies of the out-of-home sector attend to deal with the topic more often. It should be emphasized in particular that the local level which includes companies of the out-of-home catering sector is the most important level, since this is the point where the reduction of waste actually takes place.  

Different scientific projects like the European project FUSIONS as well as REFRESH (Resource Efficient Food and dRink for the Entire Supply cHain) analyzed and investigated causes for food waste. Different national projects like the German project ReFoWas (Reduce Food Waste) or the Swedish project Stoppa Matsvinnet were financed by the national food agencies with the aim to reduce food waste.