The fight against food waste has no expiry date

Sixteen years later, the fight against food waste no longer makes big headlines in the media. There are fewer TV features and press clips about food waste nationally, internationally and in Europe – and there is also less focus on food waste on the social media. But just because the media’s focus on food waste is declining, the problem doesn’t disappear.

Fortunately, many national, European and international stakeholders and companies are already meeting the EU’s and UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and have already achieved to cut their food waste in half. The results of the Stop Wasting Food movement’s sixteen years of work can clearly be seen in retailers, food services, large food companies and households. Recently, Her Royal Highness Princess Marie of Denmark has become a Patron of the Stop Wasting Food movement (Stop Spild Af Mad) organisation. Thus, the fight against food waste has no expiry date.

Set national targets to reduce food losses and food waste

Earlier this year, the European Parliament adopted its wishes for new targets for all member states: targets for reduction of food waste of 20% in production and processing and 40% in retail, food service and households by 2030. It is happening as part of a review of the EU’s Waste Framework Directive, which was last updated in 2018. These targets are a renewal of the decision taken by the European Parliament in 2017, which called on the European Commission to introduce a legally binding target for all member states to halve food waste by 2030, covering the entire supply chain. The European Parliament is expected to revise and finally adopt these objectives later in 2024.

Other policy recommendations for the EU member states on less food losses and food waste include:

• Introducing a standardised method to measure food losses and food waste waste. Many EU food losses and food waste data today cannot be compared due to the different methods of measure. Therefore, it would be good to develop a standardised method for measuring food losses and food waste, so the development can be compared the development from measurement to measurement.
• Providing continued financial support for the fight against food losses and food waste. Set up National Funds for the Prevention and Reduction of Food Waste to provide ongoing support to the fight against food waste widely from farm to fork: from research to campaigns to voluntary food waste organisations. If the fight against food waste is primarily dependent on volunteers and well-intentioned European citizens, it risks dying out completely.
• Making wasting food socially unacceptable. In the current climate, where people in Ukraine lack food due to Russia’s brutal invasion, and children in Gaza starve as is the case in many other places in the world, there is no room for promoting gluttony. It is time to consider making wasting food socially unacceptable. By writing this I don’t mean that we should all force ourselves to eat much more than we actually need – or become a ’food waste police’. What I mean is that we should cherish the food and treat it with the utmost respect, since so many children and adults in Europe and in the rest of the world don’t have enough to eat.

As an active member of the EU Platform on Food Losses and Food Waste for the last eight years, I applaud this new development. Since 2010, the Stop Wasting Food movement together with several European organisations and stakeholders signed the Joint Declaration Against Food Waste – a European declaration that aimed to reduce global food waste by at least 50% by 2025. It was precisely this collaboration that led to the European Commission’s own resolution on targets for less food waste in 2012. This later inspired the UN SDGs, which were adopted in 2015 in New York – and specifically, target 12.3 means that the world must halve the world’s food losses and food waste by the year 2030.

When both the EU and the UN already have reduction targets for less food losses and food waste, it could be one of the good policy recommendations, because what can be measured, can be managed. Since there is already a build-up of pressure from the EU and the UN, the EU member states’ governments should consider setting their own national targets to reduce food losses and food waste.

Food waste is a man-made problem

Food waste is in fact a man-made problem because there is actually no food waste in nature – as all food in nature is part of nature’s cycle. So, if you leave some of the apples hanging on your apple tree in the garden, it will provide nourishment for the birds, insects and other animals in the garden. Food wasted in nature is not wasted in the same way food is wasted in retail.

It is important to remember that climate-friendly food is only climate-friendly if it gets eaten. Regardless of whether we eat vegetarian, vegan, pesco-vegetarian or carnivorous, it is important that we strive and ensure that all the food we buy and prepare is eaten. For example, we must also remember to look, smell and taste the food when it is about to expire, because there is actually a life after the ’best before’ date – it does not mean ’toxic after’.

The fight against food waste cannot be fixed with one miracle solution because the fight against food waste must be won together with contributions from the entire value chain from farm to fork. By preventing and reducing food waste, we save both our time and our money and we also help the climate.

Bon appetit and have a very happy International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste on 29 September!

The views expressed in this #CriticalThinking article reflect those of the author(s) and not of Friends of Europe.