EuroCommerce, a group that represents retailers across Europe, has called on national governments and the EU to make it easier for businesses to deal with food waste and facilitate food donations.
According to the group, Europeans throw away more than 88 million tonnes of food every year, and if there is no action to change this, food waste could rise to over 120 million tonnes by 2020.
“It is a scandal, both environmentally and socially, that wholesome food goes to waste," said Christian Verschueren, Director-General of EuroCommerce.
"We call upon the EU and national governments to look carefully at their rules and help address the obstacles holding us all back from exploiting the potential for moving closer to eliminating food waste.”
The group has published a report, Rising to the Food Waste Challenge, which sets out best practice and case studies for dealing with food waste in-store, working with farmers to better match production with demand, and marketing food waste principles to consumers.
© 2017 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Stephen Wynne-Jones. Click subscribe to sign up for ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine.
