PUBLIC PROCUREMENT NEWS

  

Deep dive

9 January 2019

Conference on Food Waste Prevention and Management

Food waste is an important policy issue across Europe, from France to the Czech Republic, policy makers are adopting new laws urging producers and retailers to eliminate and donate unsold food that would otherwise go to waste.

The University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna, is now inviting to a conference on the topic of food waste management and prevention. The event tackles one of the most pressing issues when it comes to waste management and prevention.

From a circular economy point of view, it is necessary to reduce and manage food losses occurring along the whole supply chain. More sustainable food systems can be and need to be achieved in order to reach the targets defined by the UN’s development agenda for the 21st century.  

Although there is a lot of research done in the food waste sector there are still fundamental issues that need to be faced first like identifying appropriate methods to monitor the food waste amounts along the food supply chain or identifying how different actors can work together in future. Beyond that it is necessary to cope with slowly changing attitudes and behaviours of actors along the food value chain - therefore possible solutions to transfer knowledge and arouse interest need to be tested. 
 
This conference focuses on new findings as well as new solutions for the prevention and management of food waste along the whole supply chain in the Central Europe region but would love to share and discuss current scientific insights on this issue from all over the world.
 
Several pilot actions of the European project UrbanWINS are targeted at reducing food waste in urban areas. They address different stakeholders along the supply chain of food products, including producers, retailers, restaurants, consumers, and waste management companies.

Introducing a new regulation, the city of Bucharest is developing a waste prevention guide and integrated “zero waste” separate collection system for the food industry (e.g. restaurants, catering).

In the city of Cremona, a ‘Last Minute Market’ for recovered and donated food surpluses and expiring products is created, reducing the amount of food, as well as contributing to social solidarity.

And finally, the city of Leiria is developing a guide for food waste reduction, addressing restaurants, canteens, bars, catering services and the general public. The city will also offer a training program to help implementing measures to prevent, reduce and separate urban residues at the source.