Skip to main content
Citizens’ Engagement Platform
European Citizens' Food Waste Panel

A new phase of citizen engagement

Integrating citizens’ recommendations in food waste policy

How to reduce food waste more effectively? 

The citizens’ perspective

They include:

  • Associating food waste reduction with a fair, equitable food supply chain that ensures solidarity and cooperation between actors, with mechanisms in place to facilitate the redistribution of surplus food to those in need.
  • The need for the EU to set an overarching goal to reduce food waste, with Member States taking steps to ensure that the goal is met following an evidence-based approach to guide and monitor progress made.
  • The prominent role of education to build understanding and appreciation of the value of food from an early age.

What's next?

Food waste: what's at stake?

58 million tonnes
of food waste per year
131 kilogrammes
of food waste per year per EU citizen
€132 billion
of food waste per year

23 recommendations to speed up food waste reduction in the EU

The citizens’ recommendations support the Commission’s work on food waste, including the legislative proposal to set legally binding EU reduction targets. The report of the deliberations, as the outcome of the panel, was published together with the Commission’s proposal. The food waste reduction targets are proposed as part of a targeted revision of the "Waste Framework Directive" addressing both textile and food waste. The citizens’ recommendations will be shared and discussed further with the EU Platform on Food Losses and Food Waste bringing together Members States and stakeholders.

The full set of recommendations can be found in the documents section below.

Timeline

The Food waste panel sessions took place between December 2022 and February 2023.

  1. 16-18 December 2022
    Session 1 - Brussels

    The first session had to generate ideas, and to build and group approaches that citizens found most promising for further discussion.

  2. 20-22 January 2023
    Session 2 - online

    The second session, was held online from 20-22 January 2023. Based on the approaches to reduce food waste agreed at the first session, initial recommendations were drafted. Citizens evolved ideas on three different topics

    • Cooperation in the food value chain - From farm to fork
    • Food business initiatives
    • Supporting behaviour change among consumers.
  3. 10-12 February 2023
    Closing session - Brussels

    The closing session on 10-12 February 2023 in Brussels submitted the conclusions of debates, together with the panels’ recommendations, to the European Commission. The final list of recommendations can be found in the documents section below.

How to reduce food waste more effectively? 
The citizens’ perspective.

Citizens have discussed and developed recommendations on the actions that the EU, the 27 member states, citizens and other private and public stakeholders should take, in order to speed up efforts to reduce food waste.

Fighting food waste is a triple win

  1. saving food for human consumption
  2. helping farmers, companies and consumers to save money
  3. lowering the environmental impact of food production and
    consumption

What was the outcome of the panel?

The panel has provided a list of recommendations to support the Commission’s work on food waste, which includes a legislative proposal to set EU food waste reduction targets. The panel also provided guidance to help Member States achieve these targets.

There is such a lack of knowledge when it comes to waste. It’s not just the consumer’s fault. We have to find solutions. We’re all consumers, after all.

RS, Food Waste Citizens' panel participant