MEPs call for urgent measures to halve food waste

by Hannah James⁽¹⁵⁾
Cawleys

Cawleys are pleased to see that the European Parliament are seeing the need to bring in urgent measures to halve food waste across the EU by 2025 and improve access to food for needy citizens.

MEPs estimate that up to 50% of edible and healthy food gets wasted in EU households, supermarkets, restaurants and along the food supply chain each year, while 79 million EU citizens live beneath the poverty line and 16 million depend on food aid from charitable institutions.

Since food is wasted at all stages - by producers, processors, retailers, caterers and consumers, - MEPs have called for a co-ordinated strategy, combining EU-wide and national measures, to improve the efficiency of food supply and consumption chains sector by sector and to tackle food wastage as a matter of urgency. If nothing is done, a study published by the Commission estimates that food wastage will grow by 40% by 2020.

The most important problem which will need to be tackled, according to MEPs, is increased demand for food, as it will outstrip supply.
Prior to the vote last Thursday (January 19), rapporteur Salvatore Caronna said that MEPs could no longer afford to stand idly by while perfectly edible food is being wasted, claiming that it was both an ethical and also an economic and social problem.

He also emphasized that "the ball is now in the Commission's court. We expect nothing less than a convincing EU strategy that will steer all 27 Member States to systematically tackle the issue."

Education and labelling

To drastically reduce food wastage by 2025, MEPs are calling in the resolution for new awareness campaigns to be run at both EU and national levels to inform the public how to avoid wasting food. Member States should introduce school and college courses explaining how to store, cook and dispose of food and also exchange best practices to this end. To promote the idea of using food sustainably, MEPs called for 2014 to be designated as 'European year against food waste'.

To avoid situations in which retailers offer food too close to its expiry date and thus increase the potential for wastage, the resolution also states that dual-date labelling could be introduced to show until when food may be sold (sell-by date) and until when it may consumed (use-by date).
And, it adds that the European Commission and Member States should first ensure that customers understand the difference between labels currently used within the EU, such as the quality-related "best before" and safety-related "use by" dates.

Packaging sizes

To enable consumers to buy just the amounts they need, it claims that food packaging should be offered in a range of sizes and designed to conserve food better. Foods close to their expiry dates and damaged food products should be sold at discounted prices, to make them more accessible to people in need.

MEPs also claim that public procurement rules for catering and hospitality should be updated to ensure that where possible, contracts are awarded to catering companies that use local produce and give away or redistribute leftover food to poorer people or food banks free of charge, rather than just disposing of it.

EU-level support measures such as distributing food to least-favoured citizens or programmes encouraging consumption of fruit and milk in schools should also be retargeted with a view to preventing food waste, adds the resolution.

MEPs also welcomed existing initiatives in some Member States to recover unsold food and offer it to needy citizens and called on retailers to take part in such programmes.

Waste

At present, 89 million tonnes of food is wasted in the 27 EU Member States, equivalent to 170kg per person. This is expected to rise to 126 million tonnes by 2020 if no action is taken – a 40% rise. This is why Cawleys are proud to be at the forefront of new waste recycling innovations such as hazardous, food and liquid waste solutions, enabling us to provide a full and complete service just for you.

According to the Commission, households are responsible for 42% of this waste (60% of which is avoidable), while manufacturers account for 39%, retailers 5% and the catering sector 14%.

In November 2011, the European Commission said that tackling food waste was a priority under its Roadmap to a Resource Efficient Europe.

Article submitted Tuesday, January 24, 2012 & read 1 times.

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