The Environment and Energy Management Agency makes simple recommendations to reduce food waste and the associated costs.
Food waste is not inevitable. This is in any case the message of Ademe, which publishes a series of “simple” and sometimes “inexpensive” actions to reduce food waste in the distribution sector by 300,000 tonnes per year and to save 700 million. euros.
With nearly 1.4 million tonnes of products – the equivalent of 2.8 billion meals of 500 g -, distribution as a whole produces 14% of food loss and waste, recalls the Environment Agency. and energy management (Ademe) in a press release.
160 tons not wasted in three months
The agency carried out an experiment in ten stores of more than 400 m2, belonging to five national brands (Carrefour, Intermarché, Système U, E. Leclerc, Auchan), which had volunteered. This work has shown that “through actions that are sometimes simple and with low cost, it has been possible to reduce waste by 22% in three months in all stores”.
“This corresponds to 160 tonnes less for all the stores, if we report it over a year, or the equivalent of 320,000 meals. Per store, this represents savings of 70,000 euros per year on average, ”says the agency. The full cost of food waste is on average, per store, 400,000 euros per year.
According to Ademe, if the entire distribution (including local and national markets and food businesses of all sizes), achieved the same results as these ten stores, “it would reduce its food waste by 300,000 tonnes per year. and would save more than 700 million euros per year ”.
The volume of wastage varies according to the stores studied: “the more the sales volumes and the customers are important, the more the rate of losses is reduced”. To explain the waste, Ademe blames the management of references in stores, noting that in some of them, “less than 1% of references were at the origin of 20% of food waste” (in euros).
An “anti-waste manager”
The agency offers on its site ten sheets describing “simple and effective” actions against waste (reducing the number of references, appointing an “anti-waste manager”, organizing the assisted sale of fruits and vegetables to avoid their handling by customers, etc.).
Parliament passed a law in February aimed in particular at preventing supermarkets from throwing away food and making their unsold items unfit for consumption. Ademe is to launch two other studies on food waste: one in the agri-food industry, the other in the agricultural world.
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