Reducing Waste and Redistributing Surplus Food

A European initiative is seeking to reduce food waste and redistribute surplus food.

The declaration is in line with the European Commission’s goal of halving edible food waste by 2020.

Initiated by FoodDrink Europe, the trade association, which represents the food and drink industries in Europe, and co-signed by several other European trade associations and by the European Federation of Food Banks, FEBA, the EU-wide declaration aims at preventing edible food from being wasted but also promotes the redirection of surplus to feed people through the support to food redistribution organisations, before it goes to feed animal or to industrial uses.

The Every Crumb Counts campaign maintains: “When food is unable to stay within the human food chain and be redirected to feed people, the optimal solution will depend on a case by case evaluation.

“A first consideration should be whether it can be redirected to feed livestock subject to safety, quality and legislative requirements being met.

“Otherwise, consideration should be given to using it as a raw material for other industries (e.g. detergents, inks, cosmetics, plastics and pharmaceuticals) or recovery (e.g. transformed into fertilizer or compost or used for renewable energy production). Only as a last resort should it be incinerated without energy recovery or sent to landfill.”

A new report by the Spoil Association in the UK shows that the global market for organic food grew by more than 25 per cent since the start of the global economic crisis between 2008 and 2011.

According to the Organic Market Report 2013, worldwide sales of organic food and drink reached $63 billion – more than €45 billion – by the end of 2011.

The latest figures from the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL) and the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM) organic farming is practised in 162 countries.

In 2011 37.2 million hectares of farmland were managed organically and organic farming had a 0.86 per cent share of agricultural land surveyed.

The report says that it is estimated that there are another 32.5 million hectares of organic wild areas and non-agricultural land bringing the total organic farm land to 69.7 million hectares.

In the US, first Tyson Foods and now Cargill have suspended the use of cattle for beef that have been fed with the growth promoter, Zilmax.

Concerns have been raised over the welfare of the animals that have been fed the betagonist, and the processors have stopped buying cattle while the pharmaceutical company, Merck that manufactures the product carries out tests.

The product has been declared not to be a food safety issue, but concerns have been raised over a possibility that it is associated with lameness in some cattle.