EU project aims to slash food waste by 30% by 2025

27-Sep-2015 - Last updated on 28-Sep-2015 at 12:29 GMT

The new EU-backed REFRESH project, aims to slash food waste by 30% by 2025.

Related tags Food waste European union

A new EU-funded research project involving partners across the EU, as well as in China, will help reduce food waste by 30% by 2025, say those behind the project.

The Horizon 2020 project – known as Resource Efficient Food and dRink for the Entire Supply cHain (REFRESH) – is set to run from 2015 to 2019, and will work to reduce food waste and waste management costs, in addition to maximising the value from unavoidable food waste and packaging materials.

According to information provided by the project, around 100 million tonnes of food are wasted annually in the EU, and that if nothing is done, waste levels could rise to over 120 million tonnes by 2020. Indeed, the food resources being lost and wasted in Europe would be enough to feed all the hungry people in the world two times over, according to a 2015 European Commission report.

“It’s imperative that we take an EU-wide, comprehensive approach to reducing avoidable waste, and finding better uses for what can’t be avoided” commented Professor Keith Waldron, director of the UK Institute of Food Research (IFR) Biorefinery Centre – who will be leading work aimed at identifying key waste streams across the EU, and finding ways of adding value to them by turning them into other products.

Led by Wageningen UR, the four year project aims to develop strategic agreements to reduce food waste with governments, business and local stakeholders in four pilot countries (Spain, Germany, Hungary and the Netherlands), in addition to formulating EU policy recommendations and supporting national implementation of food waste policy frameworks.

According to Waldron, the project will evaluate technological feasibility, economic viability, legislative compliance and environmental sustainability through four European pilot countries as well as in China.

2 comments

Reducing consumer food waste

Posted by Dr. Kenneth Marsh, 28 September 2015 - 13:38 GMT

As a speaker at the 1st Save Food Congress, I heard Minister Aigner's challenge to reduce food waste and responded with an article in Food Technology. The proposed program aims to reduce waste, increase consumer awareness, utilize the nutrients of food waste, decrease odor and disease and reduce disposal costs. All of these are possible at low cost but requires a change in thinking.

Report abuse

Food Waste Reduction

Posted by Rod Averbuch, 28 September 2015 - 13:11 GMT

Food waste is a lose-lose situation for the environment, the struggling families in today’s tough economy and for the food retailers. Fortunately, there are new ways to reduce fresh food waste.

The new open GS1 DataBar barcode standard enables new food waste reduction applications that allow automatic progressive purchasing incentives for fresh perishables approaching their expiration dates. These applications also eliminate labor-intensive manual relocation and promotional labeling of the promoted perishable lots.

An example of such an application is the “End Grocery Waste” App. This GS1 DataBar based application encourages efficient consumer shopping behavior that makes fresh food affordable for all families, maximizes grocery retailer revenue, and effectively reduces the global carbon footprint.