On 17 December 2021, the European Commission published the EU Platform on Food Losses and Food Waste activity report summarising the achievements of the first mandate (2016-2021).
According to Stella Kyriakides, European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, the Platform “has built momentum for change”. Uniting various stakeholders, such as NGOs, public authorities, research institutes, and food business operators, eager to accelerate the EU’s progress towards reaching SDG 12.3 (halving per capita food waste and reducing food losses), it has accommodated a network of knowledge and action. During six years of work, including 12 plenary meetings and 22 gatherings and webinars of the four sub-groups, several deliverables have been produced with the most prominent being the Key recommendations for action in food waste prevention and the contribution to the development of a common evaluation framework for food waste prevention actions, as well as a calculator to quantify the environmental and economic impacts of the latter.
Besides reiterating the milestones achieved, the Platform’s report further highlights the status quo of EU Member States in terms of implementing the recommendations for action and features standpoints of Platform members representing the interests of primary producers, manufacturers, retail, hospitality and food service, and consumers. Reviewing the progress made as regards food donation, FEBA recapitulates the efforts to facilitate surplus food recovery and redistribution (see pag. 17).
Finally, the EU Food Loss and Waste Prevention Hub is introduced as an important instrument to foster the sharing of best practices and next steps envisaged to be taken by the Platform during its new mandate (2022-2026) are announced. FEBA has again been selected as a member and will continue contributing to future action.
