Planet

Food waste, EC guidelines

October 21, 2017

Surplus food. Leftover food if intact, or otherwise escaped its first hypothetical fate, should never be wasted. Instead, wherever possible priority should be given to its reuse, to feed populations.

On October 16, 2017(World Food Day), the European Commission published special Guidelines. (1) To help member states properly manage–and improve–food surplus recovery, without neglecting rules to guard safety, consumer information, and taxation.

Table of Contents

Food inequality and food waste in Europe.

Nearly a quarter of the population in the EU-more than 119 million citizens, out of a total of 500 (2)-are at risk of poverty. Of these, 42.5 million are unable to obtain the necessary daily food essential for nutrition. At the same time, 88 million tons of food goes to waste each year in Europe, with an estimated disposal cost of 142 billion euros.

A chain and chain of scandals to be attributed to grossly inadequate social policies at the level of the European Union and individual member states. In violation of the right to food, which ranks among the international human rights proclaimed by the United Nations.

In the production and distribution of food, these figures are symptomatic of the intolerable inefficiency of a supply chain that has always been conceived and sustained in its sole vague desire to protect the incomes of the operators involved. Regardless of the consumption of essential resources whose fruits are increasingly unevenly distributed.

The guidelines of the European Commission

Instead of expressing the courage of a common and cohesive social policy, under the banner of that principle of Égalité evoked since the French Revolution as the foundation of democracy, the neoliberal policy of the Commission chaired by Jean-Claude Juncker works on symptoms.

It is therefore aimed at member states, with the goal of engaging players in the food supply chain in the recovery of those precious resources-surplus food-that can and indeed should, in Brussels’ diplomatic tones, be directed to the needy rather than waste. Thanks to the commendable efforts of those organizations-such as the Banco Alimentare in Italy, Caritas and other institutions-that have been dedicated to combating food waste for decades, among other things.

Surplus food and Surplus people

Surplus food recovered for the purpose of its redistribution to the poorer classes now accounts for 0.47 percent of the total food wasted in the EU (just 535 thousand tons, 2016 data). An achievement worthy of esteem, considering the meager resources available to the NGOs working on it.

There is thus ample room for improvement, for the management of surplus food and especially for the care of surplus people. Égalité!

Dario Dongo

Notes

(1) SEE https://ec.europa.eu/food/sites/food/files/safety/docs/fw_eu-actions_food-donation_eu-guidelines_en.pdf

(2) Cf. https://europa.eu/european-union/sites/europaeu/files/eu_in_slides_it.pdf