A new report reveals the scale of food waste in Europe. 153 million tons of food end up in the trash every year – more than is imported.
Edible food is still disposed of due to legal requirements. From a legal point of view, the resulting “dumpster”, i.e. getting the groceries out of the garbage cans of supermarkets, for example, is problematic. In Austria, this is even considered theft. There have already been criminal charges, but there has not been a distribution to date. Also, within the EU, some curved and misshapen vegetables are still sorted out instead of being sold. A research team from the Feedback EU Foundation has now examined the actual extent of waste at EU level.
According to the No Time to Waste report, more food is thrown away each year within the European Union than is imported. The imbalance probably also has economic consequences. The British newspaper The Guardian, for example, reports in connection with the study that food price inflation could be curbed if there was less waste.
Over 150 million tons
The report estimates that the EU imports around 138 million tonnes of agricultural products a year, worth €150 billion, from countries outside its borders. An even larger amount – 153.5 million tons – is wasted every year. This is particularly worrying given the fact that 33 million people in the EU cannot afford high-quality, healthy food, the report reads. Women and marginalized groups are particularly affected.
The amount of wheat wasted in the EU alone is equivalent to about half of Ukraine’s wheat exports and a quarter of the EU’s other grain exports, the study said. The director of the foundation, Frank Mechielsen, called the results to the “Guardian” a scandal. Legally binding targets are being called for to halve food waste along the entire food chain by 2030. This is intended to improve food security and, last but not least, to combat climate change.
food crisis
A reform of the global food system is needed. At the latest after climate change, the pandemic and most recently the war in Ukraine have shaken it. At a summit on global food security in New York on Tuesday, Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz again warned that the food crisis could worsen. “We must act with great urgency to halt the rise in food insecurity,” he said on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.
The report also mentions impacts on the climate. For example, food waste accounts for at least six percent of the EU’s total emissions, and it is one of the largest emitters in the world. The waste would also cost EU households and companies more than 143 billion euros.
mostly not recorded
To date, there are no basic EU data on food waste in farms in 2020. The research is therefore based on calculations of the Food Waste Index of the UN Environment Program and a WWF meta-study, both from 2021. The report assumes that primary production is predominantly wasted, including the production, rearing and cultivation of goods. It also includes hunting and fishing and harvesting of wild products. He attributes around 90 million tons of food waste to this – three times more than household waste.
Most of the waste would probably not even be recorded, because food that is not harvested, not used or not sold on farms is usually not taken into account, the Guardian reads. According to the research team, waste is greater in high-income countries than in those with lower incomes.
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