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SUMMER 2019

IFWC REPORT

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IFWC 2019 Check out what we have done this year so

far and our future actions.

Our Members in action Our members fight food waste, their key

actions in 2019.

The EU Food Waste Policy The EU common methodology for

quantifying food waste, REFRESH results

and national policies in France, Italy and

the UK.

Trends Trends that are shaping the food waste

reduction field according to us.

Next Initiatives and coming events.

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OUR NEW STRATEGY

Since 2015, we have clearly identified

needs within food services value chains for

INNOVATION to enable all players to

collaborate, measure food loss and waste

(FLW), share costs and redistribute

benefits associated with FLW prevention.

External analysis by FSG confirmed that

IFWC remains a unique initiative

connecting actors along food services

value chains, to collaboratively prevent

food waste.

To scale our impact, we have defined a

new strategy that makes the IFWC a hub

for FLW prevention within hospitalities

and food services (HaFS) in Europe.

Through active networks of businesses and

organizations at both local/national and

European levels, we want to

• Facilitate stakeholders’ engagement.

• Support priority solutions for

implementation.

• Be the voice of HaFS businesses on

FLW reduction in Europe and

embrace a thought leadership.

This implies organizational changes:

1. Recruiting an Executive Director

that embodies the organization

within European networks.

2. Recruiting businesses from

hospitalities and ensuring our

membership covers all stages of

the value chain.

3. Leveraging and coordinating

active national networks.

4. Transforming into a pre-

competitive environment.

These transformations will allow better

access to EU funding solutions while

reinforcing our impact as a European

non-profit organization.

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ON GOING WORK

1. The IFWC Executive Director job

offer has been posted on IFWC website.

2. Proposal from United Against Waste

to define collaboration process will be

received in September.

3. Dissemination of Do Good: Save

Food!

3.1 The European Parliament

Intergroup on "Climate Change,

Biodiversity & Sustainable Development”

& the European Parliamentary Alliance on

the Fight against Hunger, organized an EU

Roundtable on «Do Good: Save Food!

Educating future generations for a zero-

food waste world» on February 21st. Click

here to access the event summary report.

3.2 Our partner, FAO REU, reached

agreements to translate education

materials for Romania, Croatia, Hungary

and Turkey. FAO regional office in Asia

has agreed to implement the education

package in Thailand within 20.000 schools

in 2020. A Train the trainers’ workshop is

to be scheduled in December.

3.3 To promote Do good: Save food!

and receive endorsement from European

cities, a webinar was organized the 26th of

June in partnership with the Association of

Cities and Regions for sustainable

Resource management (ACR+), a

network of cities and regions for sustain-

-able resources management. New

contacts have been made leading to

calls to further identify potential

collaboration with government

members and NGO’s in the UK, France

and Belgium (UK Department for

Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

and Zero Waste Scotland, Good Planet

France and Belgium, Biocanteens

network – URBACT). ACR+

coordinates the European Week for

Waste Reduction scheduled from 16th

to the 24th November, this year,

focusing on Waste Education and

Communication. Do Good: Save Food!

will be promoted and made accessible

on the EWWR webpage for schools

willing to participate.

3.4 Together with FAO REU, EIT

food, FoodWin and ACR+, we are

thinking of organizing a communication

campaign during the European Week

for Waste Reduction targeting

European consumers.

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Sodexo works to be able to halve food

waste by 2025. Waste Watch is a data-

driven food waste prevention program to

enable teams to capture food waste data,

get clear insights into what is being wasted

and why, whether food waste is generated

in the kitchen or at consumer level.

Sodexo’s commitment to deploy food

waste measurement at 3.000 sites

represents the largest initiative of its

kind in the restaurant and foodservice

industry. “We are committed to make

these figures public to bring a sense of

urgency and motivate us to always do

better,” said Denis Machuel, Sodexo’s

CEO. Find more information here.

Denis Machuel will attend the Champions

12.3’s annual meeting event conference in

September 2019 in New York (U.S.).

Denis Machuel Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Sodexo

Neil Barrett Group Senior Vice President Corporate Responsibility of Sodexo

Roshith Rajan Director, Corporate Responsibility Asia Pacific of Sodexo

Erika Galland Corporate Responsibility Program Manager of Sodexo

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WWF North America

Supported by the WWF, the Pacific Coast

Collaborative — a consortium of U.S. and

Canadian governments consisting of

British Colombia, California, Oregon, and

Washington, as well as the cities of

Oakland, Portland, San Francisco, Seattle,

and Vancouver — committed to halving

food waste by 2030.

The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) is

expanding Food Waste Warriors, its

program aimed at educating students

and school staff about the impacts of

wasted food. The Food Waste Warrior

toolkit provides lessons, activities and

resources to share how what we eat and

what we throw away impacts our planet by

creating a classroom in the cafeteria.

From January 2019, WWF consultants

and contractors started to implement the

program at schools in Atlanta,

Cincinnati, Columbus, Denver,

Indianapolis, Nashville, Phoenix,

Portland (Oregon), and Seattle.

WWF Greece

WWF Greece has teamed up with

Unilever Food Solutions for the “Hotel

Kitchen: Food has Value” initiative,

which includes three Greek hotels this

summer. For 3 months, hotel staff will

be introduced to best practices and

ways to reduce food waste, including

keeping record of waste across the

supply, preparation and dining process.

The toolkit will be offered to interested

hotel businesses and seminars for

hotel’s staff, executives and culinary

arts students.

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At General Mills, we believe that taking a lead role

in surplus food recovery is a business, moral and

sustainability imperative. When less food is

wasted, fewer greenhouse gases are emitted from

landfills, less water is consumed growing unused

food, and more hungry people get fed.

General Mills has invested in food banking for more than four decades, including philanthropic cash investments of €18 million in the last 10 years alone. By supporting the launch and scaling of FareShare GO in the UK (used by Tesco, Waitrose, and others) and MealConnect in the USA, more than 30.000 retail locations have gained the capability to systematically donate their surplus food.

In the last 12-month period, these

philanthropic efforts helped nonprofit

partners recover more than 1,9 billion

kgs of good surplus food.

With support from General Mills, FareShare in the U.K. last year recovered enough surplus food to help enable 36 million meals for hungry people.

For more on how General Mills is taking a lead role in food recovery and food waste reduction globally, please visit: generalmills.com/Responsibility/Sustainability/food-waste.

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1 Combating Food Waste: an opportunity for the EU to improve the resource-efficiency of the food supply chain, European Court of Auditors, 2016

EU POLICY

In 2016, the European Court of Auditors

highlighted the fact that the Commission’s

ambition in regard to food waste, has

decreased over time1 “waste reduction

targets have been lowered – initial target

set in 2011 was to halve disposal of edible

food by 2020 while the current 12.3 target

states ‘halving per capita food waste at the

retail and consumer level by 2030’, the

obligation for Member States to report on

food waste has been delayed, the deadline

for the Commission to adopt an

implementing act to establish a common

methodology for measuring food waste

has been repeatedly postponed and there

is still no EU-wide definition for food waste.

Altogether, a baseline (a reference level

for a given year) from which to target

reduction in food waste has never been

defined”.

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Nevertheless in 2019, important barriers have been removed:

1. A common food waste

measurement methodology to

support Member States in

quantifying food waste at each stage

of the food supply chain was

released in May 2019 and will enter

into force in fall 2019. This

methodology includes an official food

waste definition.

2. Member States should start

measuring food waste on a yearly

basis in 2020.

3. By 31 December 2023, the

Commission shall examine data on

food waste provided by Member States

to deliver a baseline from which the

feasibility of setting up a Union-wide

food waste reduction target to be met

by 2030 will be examined.

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THE EU COMMON FLW MEASUREMENT METHODOLOGY

KEY INFORMATION

This methodology will ensure coherent monitoring of food waste levels across the EU.

It is compatible with the Food Loss and Waste Standard2, i.e. following the EU

measurement methodologies, and associated minimum quality requirements can be

achieved Food Loss and Waste Standard, this is true for all actors (business, NGO,

Region, country).

DEFINITIONS

Food: encompasses food as a whole, along the entire food supply chain from

production until consumption. Food also includes inedible parts, where those were not

separated from the edible parts when the food was produced, such as bones attached

to meat destined for human consumption.

Food waste: can comprise items which include parts of food intended to be ingested

and parts of food not intended to be ingested. It does not include losses at stages of

the food supply chain where certain products have not yet become food, such as edible

plants which have not been harvested. Beverages and drinks are not to be measured

(only in a voluntary basis).

GOALS

1. Measure levels of food waste uniformly.

2. Define an EU baseline with better understanding of the problems and

identify priority actions.

3. Provide a coherent monitoring and reporting framework.

4. Coordinated EU level policy, to set possible quantitative targets.

SCOPE

Food waste must be measured separately at each stage: (a) primary production;

(b) processing and manufacturing; (c) retail and other distribution of food; (d)

restaurants and food services; (e) households. Agricultural losses (and most of the

agricultural waste) and food by- products are excluded from the monitoring.

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2 The purpose of the FLW Standard is to facilitate the quantification of FLW (what to measure and how to measure it) and

encourage consistency and transparency of the reported data.

MEASUREMENT

Member States are to report FLW generated in a yearly basis (Annex IV can be used,

instead of Annex III which has higher requirements). In depth analysis of the FLW

generated is to be done at least once every four years nationally (using Annex III

is compulsory for the first year).

To ensure comparability between Member States, they should provide additional

information linked to the methods of measurement and the quality of the collected data.

All actors in the supply chain in charge of measuring need to follow the minimum

quality requirements for its uniform measurement (as defined in the

methodology).

IMPACT ON BUSINESSES

The EU relies on Member States to collect food waste data. It is Member States

decision to make it compulsory for businesses or not to measure food waste.

Members States will choose how they want to collect data from business operators and

ensure data representativeness and reliability (i.e. knowing what measurement method

is being used and reach a representative sample and significant amount of data).

As already seen with ADEME studies in France, with the REDUCE project in Italy or

with WRAP in the UK, public-private collaboration will be organized on the basis of

voluntary agreements where businesses collaborate and get the support from experts

(public/private agencies, universities, NGO’s, consulting companies, etc.) to implement

FLW measurement methodologies in their operations and report data within dedicated

frameworks. This is usually funded and coordinated by relevant Ministries and enables

Member States to derive estimates of FLW generated over a year in the country.

It is likely that in the future Governments will progressively make it compulsory for

businesses (for big businesses rather than SME’s) to measure and monitor

transparently FLW generated within their operations and along their supply chains.

It will be crucial for businesses to explain how they have collected data and

justify when and why they haven’t been able to comply with minimum quality

requirements.

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REFRESH LEGACY

Find all results of Refresh on

their website: https://eu-

refresh.org/results

The project aimed to:

• Develop strategic agreements to reduce food waste with governments, business and local stakeholders in four pilot countries: Spain, Germany, Hungary and the Netherlands.

• Formulate EU policy recommendations and support national implementation of food waste policy frameworks.

• Design and develop technological innovations to improve valorization of food waste.

The Fusions project (Refresh older

brother), highlighted the need for value

chain collaboration and food waste data

collection. Refresh gave more consumers

and value chain collaboration insights

related to food waste prevention.

It concluded that process and/or policy to

define the overall EU objectives,

strategies and instruments with regard to

food in general (not only food waste), e.g.

EU Food Policy, can be a relevant step to

address many of the trade-offs and

improve the development of synergies

between food waste reduction and the

promotion of sustainable food systems.

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LEARNINGS FROM REFRESH VOLUNTARY

AGREEMENTS (2016-2018)

The Framework for Actions (FAs)

established a core group of key food

waste stakeholders (e.g. Retailer,

Producing company, Out of home

businesses, NGO, Government, Scientific

partner and Waste collection company),

recruited wider food waste signatories,

attempted to quantify their food waste

situation (baseline) and undertook pilot

projects to reduce food waste in their

country.

The main objectives of FA pilots were

to establish evidence for a pan-

European FA and enable action in keys

parts of the food supply chain, so

organizations across Europe make a

significant contribution towards SDG 12.3.

The evaluation of the project

highlighted FAs:

• Facilitate collaboration between

different stakeholders across the

food supply chain.

• Offer a flexible approach to

tackling food waste.

• Highlight shared lessons learnt

and best practice approaches.

A common issue across the

countries revolved around

difficulties with obtaining food

waste measurement data from

participating organizations.

After 4 years of project implementation and meetings

between food chain stakeholders, 150 participants - including IFWC-

met at the REFRESH final conference in Barcelona in May

2019.

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FEEDBACK FROM THE INVOLVEMENT OF THE PRIVATE SECTOR IN

VOLUNTARY AGREEMENTS

The reach to private sector has been limited. Nevertheless, companies such as Sodexo, Nestlé in Germany and Unilever and Rabobank in Netherlands were involved in different innovation projects aiming at enhancing collaboration between stakeholders in the whole value chain. For example, revision of packaging to try to reduce food waste at home, study of the effect of price promotions on food waste, characterization of food waste across the nectarines and peaches food chain in Spain…

Considering variations across countries, regarding socio-economic factors and different food waste starting points, a single pan-European agreement would be very difficult to implement, hence companies might prefer to engage in national food waste reduction plans.

It was evident through an attempted baselining exercise that there are still several barriers to obtaining quantitative food waste measurements and publish data. This is due to commercial sensitivity, fear for public bad perception, lack of resources and availability of operational methodologies. It happened that some signatory companies faced challenges around participating in pilot projects which revealed both a lack of resources available as well as a need for higher operational commitment.

More information here: Evaluation of Framework for Action, Final Synthesis Report

NB: A call for pilots will be issued for the business community and other stakeholders to participate in testing new approaches to reduce food waste and replicate these approaches into other countries.

EU NATIONAL POLICIES

Countries in the EU initiated regulations to facilitate food donation and require food waste measurement. A shift has been made towards greater focus on data collection along the supply chain when Fusions highlighted the lack of consistent data in EU countries (Estimates of European food waste levels, 2016).

Some countries like France tend to integrate food waste reduction into a glo-

-bal Food Policy (Etats généraux de

l’alimentation, loi Egalim 2018).

Others leveraged Refresh Voluntary

Agreements as a flexible framework to

enhance value chain collaboration to

reduce food waste. That shows that

countries are starting to address the

root causes of food waste.

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THE UK

The Courtauld Commitment 2025 is a

world-leading voluntary agreement to

work along the entire food chain to reduce

the environmental impact of the UK food

and drink industries, from farm to fork and

beyond.

It is materialized with the launch of the

world’s first Food Waste Reduction

Roadmap to UK businesses to:

• Measure and report consistently and

with confidence.

• Take targeted action to reduce waste in

their own operations, their supply chain

and from consumers.

• Deliver against Courtauld 2025 targets.

ITALY

The Italian Law 166/2016 against food waste makes it easier for food retailers to donate food to charities and food banks. Businesses can give away food past its sell-by date and benefit from tax cuts. Farmers are also able to donate surplus food. It has allowed a 50% increase of recorded donations and retail redistribution points (from 1050 to more than 1500) since 2016.

Through communication and information activities designed for selected targets, the LIFE-Food. Waste. StandUp Project aims at contributing to and influencing an ongoing process, enhanced by the approval of Italian Law 166/2016 on food waste, such as cross-cutting and interdisciplinary discussion meetings among stakeholders or the launch of a contest for the best idea of food waste prevention addressed to agri-food businesses, retailers and consumers.

The REDUCE project aimed at quantifying food waste in Italy -as foreseen by the EU Waste directive- and the SDG 12.3 has collected data at retail, canteens and household stages.

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FRANCE

In 2016, France passed the law 138/2016

to fight against food waste reinforcing the

food waste hierarchy: prevention

solutions first, recovery and valorization

solutions as less preferred solutions. This

law prevented food shops from making

food which is still fit for human

consumption inedible and made

compulsory for big retail shops to build

partnerships with food charities to give

away their edible food surplus. As a

result, the percentage of supermarkets

donating unsold products increased

(rising from 15% to 50% from 2016 to

2018, depending on regions).

In 2018, France voted the new law (loi

Egalim) to promote more sustainable

food systems. It includes new

requirements on food waste monitoring in

retail and mass catering sectors, making

mandatory for mass catering sites to

conduct food waste diagnosis and make

public commitments and internal audit

process associated with food waste. By

2022, a national report on food waste

monitoring in the retail and mass

catering sectors will be delivered to

the National Parliament.

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A GROWING LEVEL OF AWARENESS

There is a clear shift in consumers’

mentality showing an increase in

awareness of climate change (youth

strikes, marches for climate change

organized worldwide, private sector and

politicians’ commitments…).

In 2018, 83% of young French people

declared making efforts to reduce their

climate impact and 56% having

modified their food habits.

This shift is reflected in the number of apps

available for consumers to help them eat

better and waste less.

Food services have also embraced this

new trend. Apps/services dedicated to

helping consumers reduce food waste are

flourishing (label to identify committed

restaurants, recipes to cook leftovers,

apps to buy surplus food at discounted

prices directly in stores, order your meal in

advance to help kitchen of your

corporate/school restaurants limit

forecasting errors, special offers in mass

catering sector to avoid food waste…).

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PUBLIC REPORTING OF FOOD WASTE DATA: A REALITY?

Companies like Tesco are using their food

waste policy as a differentiator: “With 25 of

our largest suppliers, we have announced

a joint commitment to adopt UN

Sustainable Development Goal (SDG)

target 12.3, measure and publish food

waste data for their own operations and

act to reduce food waste farm to fork, since

this is the only way to know whether the

EU and the world are on course to reach

SDG Target 12.3’’.

With goal to fulfil SDG 12.3 by 2025,

instead of 2030, and commitment to

deploy food waste measurement at 3.000

sites worldwide in 2020 and make data

public, Sodexo is going in the same

direction and leverages food waste

reduction to be on track of a sustainable

development.

Consumers, States and international

institutions are increasingly asking to

companies to measure and share their

data on food waste.

The obligation from the EU Parliament

for Members States to measure their

food waste levels implies more than

ever, the collaboration from businesses

to collect data about food lost in their

operations.

“(…) I count on the active

participation of food business operators to measure and

report on waste levels.”

Vice-President for Jobs, Growth, Investment and

Competitiveness, Jyrki Katainen, May 2019

In this regard, databases, such as the Food Waste Atlas, have been created to facilitate

access to global data to help develop baselines and appropriate targets.

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HOTELS JOIN THE FIGHT

AGAINST FOOD WASTE

All-you-can-eat buffets from hotels

generate massive quantities of food waste.

Many hotels have started thinking and

implementing solutions to raise consumers’

awareness, train staff to track food waste

and set up process to monitor and reduce

food waste.

• Pullman Bangkok King Power

managed to save 21.000kg of food in 5

months.

• Hilton hotels have announced that they

want to reduce their Green House

Gases due to food they serve by 25%

by 2030 • Accord Hotels have announced that

they want to reduce food waste by 30%

by 2020.

World Wildlife Fund and the American

Hotel and Lodging Association, created a

toolkit to prevent food waste from occurring

in hotels, donate what cannot be prevented

but is still safe for people to eat, and divert

the rest away from landfills.

LightBlue Environmental Consulting

offers food waste auditing, tracking,

strategic consulting on food excess

and prevention across the supply chain

(purchasing, delivery, storage,

labelling, preparation, service and

disposal) with the aim of developing a

sustainable food procurement policy.

They worked for example with the

Bangkok Mariott Marquis Queen’s Park

Hotel and helped them reduce food

waste by 24,7 tons between Sept. and

Dec. 2018 (33 tons of CO2 emissions

avoided and a 12 % costs reduction per

cover achieved).

LightBlue Environmental Consulting

helps disseminate The Pledge on

Food Waste, an independently verified

certification designed to cut food waste,

foster collaboration with solution

providers and get efforts recognized.

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THE NEXT FOOD POLICY

There has been a clear concentration of

initiatives at the end of the value chain to

better link consumers with retailers and

restaurants. The increase of apps and

regulations to consume surplus food

instead of wasting it, illustrates the

emergency of the situation. While end of

pipe solutions are always quicker than

systemic ones, there is the need to better

forecast the demand of food (to produce

just the quantity of food needed) and to

ensure this food has enough value to our

eyes so we are not likely to waste it.

As stated in the IPES Food 2019 report

TOWARDS A COMMON FOOD POLICY

FOR THE EUROPEAN UNION, in the

absence of an umbrella strategy cutting

across different policy areas, a series of

synergies are missed, and a number of

conflicting objectives emerge leading to

food waste. Therefore, we should always

leverage food waste reduction and

support the call for a more integrated and

holistic approach in moving forward the

changes in the way we produce our food,

with renewed attention to guaranteeing

sustainable food systems.

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NEXT INITIATIVES/EVENTS

The IPCC released in Aug. a Special

Report on Climate Change and Land to

present adaptation and mitigation

response options. Food loss and waste

reduction is identified as a priority option to

deliver benefits for all five land challenges

(climate change mitigation, adaptation,

desertification, land degradation, food

security).

One noteworthy development that

promises to scale up the number of food

companies actively working to reduce FLW

is the new 10x20x30 effort. Through this

initiative, 10 of the world’s largest global

food retailers and food service providers

will each engage 20 of their own priority

suppliers to reduce their food loss and

waste by 50 percent by 2030.

On September 24th 2019, one day after the

UN Climate Change Summit in New York,

you will find out if the world is on track to

meet the global goal on reducing FLW,

where momentum is picking up, and how

you can play an important role. Champions

12.3, the world’s leading coalition of public

and private sector executives working to

achieve SDG 12.3 – will make landmark

announcements in the fight against food

loss and waste.

Publication in Sept. 2019 of:

SDG TARGET 12.3 ON FOOD LOSS

AND WASTE: 2019 PROGRESS

REPORT

An annual update on behalf of

Champions 12.3

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