This initiative to reduce food losses will consist of “re-educating” consumers and actors in the agri-food chain.
“Each year, a third of the food produced in the world is never consumed”, according to the French Environment and Energy Management Agency (ADEME). In France, food waste represents approximately 30 kg per person per year. More specifically, this represents “10 million tonnes per year, or the equivalent of 10 billion meals thrown away” each year.
A collective rehabilitation
To fight against food waste, 38 distributors, federations, consumer associations and agri-food manufacturers have signed a “pact” bringing together ten “co-constructed, concrete and measurable” commitments. This project is based on 4 important axes, which consist above all in re-educating consumers and professionals: “educating and raising awareness among all audiences”, “clarifying the difference between DLC (use-by date) and DDM (minimum durability date) with consumers”, “optimize the promotion of products excluded from sales channels” and finally “collaborate between players in the sector to harmonize best practices and optimize distribution flows”.
The signatories also undertake to test so-called “antigasti” departments in their supermarkets. Lucie Basch, founder of the anti-waste app “Too Good To Go” is behind this initiative. “We are quite positively surprised by the number of players who have rallied. Now, everyone has to work on their side on the subject”, she rejoiced with AFP. The signatories will have a road map and an update will be made during 2021 on the various initiatives put in place. All hope that other players in the food chain will join the movement.
Food waste starts at production
As ADEME explains, food waste begins at production, then continues during the food processing phase, transport, storage, distribution and finally, at home. In the end, all these steps consumed energy and also generated losses. In France, food accounts for 24% of the population’s greenhouse gas emissions.