France is the world's top performer in terms of food sustainability for the second year in a row, according to the 2017 Food Sustainability Index (FSI).
Japan was again second, followed by Germany, Spain, Sweden, Portugal, Italy, South Korea and Hungary.
The FSI, launched last year by the The Economist Intelligence Unit in cooperation with the Barilla Centre for Food & Nutrition, analysed the sustainability of the food systems in 34 countries, which represent 87% of the global GDP and two-thirds of the world's population.
Areas of Focus
The FSI aims to highlight issues of concern across three pillars: food loss and waste, sustainable agriculture, and nutritional challenges.
France scores the highest in the area of food loss and waste, in particular due to the pro-active response taken by successive governments to limit distribution-level loss and end-user waste. The country wastes only 1.8% of its total food production annually.
Italy comes out on top for sustainable agriculture, performing better than last year’s leader Germany. Italy's success was due to strong performance in terms of water availability and management.
Meanwhile, Japan scores the highest for the nutritional challenges, reflecting its leading position and high scores in the life quality and life expectancy categories, as well as a strong performance in the dietary patterns category.
Although high-income countries tend to perform somewhat better in the FSI, there are several exceptions. The UAE ranks last, despite being the country with the highest GDP per head, while Ethiopia, the poorest country in the list, ranked 12th.
© 2017 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Branislav Pekic. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine
