Collaboration with SLU !
We are happy to share with you this new series of blog posts that we have come up with in collaboration with the Department of Energy and Technology of Swedish University of Agricultural Science (SLU). We believe it is urgent to spread science in a simple way, and we want to contribute with this task by sharing with you relevant research about food waste that is being done here in Uppsala.
What about food waste?
Food waste is one of the most urgent global challenges we face today, and reducing wastage of still edible food is high on the political, social and environmental agenda. However, we have yet found a single solution that can solve the issue of food waste. Research suggest that not just measures of reducing food waste is needed, but also policy instruments that incentivize a behavior that reduce food waste – for all companies, policy makers and consumers. So what if we made food waste illegal, what would the potential gains be?
Food waste illegal ?
Nowadays exists in Sweden the “Swedish Environmental Code”, a group of laws aiming to promote sustainable development. These laws concern health issues, natural and cultural environments and of course, food waste. It is said that food waste should be addressed with the best possible technology. Best here means that there should be a concern not only on the efficiency of the technology but on its economic impact. It is not asked to companies to use excessively expensive devices or processes. Another issue is that no clear definition was given on how the equilibrium should be find: these laws are hard to put in practice and hardly applied.
A scientific study shows the impact of a law
The study “Making food waste illegal in Sweden – Potential gains from enforcing best practice in the public catering sector” has tried to see the advantages of applying the code at over 450 catering units. These units give food to care homes and schools for instance: there are omnipresent in our lives. If we could improve all the food management of schools, we could diminish food waste a lot and even educate children to stop waste. With the raw data of food waste they collected, they were able to create different scenarios and to see how these would influence food waste.
Results !
Three majors solutions appeared and were studied:
- First, have every food business operator record their food waste to keep track of it. This would help the law to see how they are doing and the scientists to keep analysing.
- Secondly, impose by law to use the best practices possible: reusing buffet leftovers, serve smaller volumes in buffet container and fill them more often or adjust recipes based on previous consumptions for instance and apply it.
- Finally, we could also impose to have a food waste quantity under a certain level. This is hard to do as what limit could we define?
Key numbers: If none of the catering units produced more waste than the median of them, there would be a reduction of 15% of the food waste and if all of them did as the best one, there would be a reduction of the food waste of 76%.
Conclusion
Not applying this code is a waste of action against food waste as we do not use the solutions we have. We may hope that this will change in the future and help reducing food waste.
“This food waste reduction is
within reach, and the current failure to apply the Environmental Code
is a wasted opportunity in this regard.”
Mattias Eriksson, Jonas Christensen, Christopher Malefors,
Making food waste illegal in Sweden – Potential gains from enforcing best practice in the public catering sector, Sustainable Production and Consumption, Volume 35, 2023, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352550922002998?via%3Dihub
To know more about this study: Mattias Eriksson, Jonas Christensen, Christopher Malefors, Making food waste illegal in Sweden – Potential gains from enforcing best practice in the public catering sector, Sustainable Production and Consumption, Volume 35, 2023, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352550922002998?via%3Dihub
Written by Gaétan Kaouadji, with the participation and the advice of Louise Bartek, PhD at SLU in the Department of Energy and Technology.
Bruised Food Club 