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Food Safety

Consumer food waste prevention sub-group

About the group

Reducing food waste is one of the objectives of the Farm to Fork Strategy, which will also contribute to achieving a circular economy and will bring savings to consumers and operators.

As households generate more than half of the total food waste in the EU (53% or over 31 million tonnes) with 69% of food waste arising at household, food service and retail (Eurostat, 2022) and given global developments in this area of work, prevention of consumer food waste is a key area of focus.

At the inaugural meeting of the EU Platform on Food Losses and Food Waste under its second mandate (2022-2026), it was agreed that a sub-group dedicated to consumer food waste prevention would be established in order to support EU and Platform members’ work in this field.

The sub-group provides a forum to exchange information on interventions carried out to modify consumer behavior concerning food waste generation and/or raise consumer awareness about the issue and results achieved.

European Consumer Food Waste Forum

The sub-group is closely involved in the on-going EU pilot project, financed by the European Parliament, and carried out by DG SANTE in collaboration with the Joint Research Centre, the European Consumer Food Waste Forum, which aims to gather data and identify a variety of evidence-based, practical solutions to reduce food waste at the consumer level, including household and food services.

Tools, best practices and recommendations to reduce consumer food waste - A compendium

Executive summary – all EU languages

More information about the objectives, tasks and membership of this sub-group can be found in its mandate:

Mandate: Consumer food waste prevention sub-group

Meetings 2023

4 December - online (Webex)

  • Agenda
  • Presentation - Setting the scene how to use date marking today by the Netherlands
  • Presentation - Danish consumers' interpretation of date labels by Aarhus University
  • Presentation - Impact of onpack information on consumers' understanding of expiry dates and food waste behaviour by WUR
  • Presentation - Preliminary findings from a study in 8 MSs on drivers of consumer food waste by EUFIC
  • Presentation - Applying date marking on food products – the perspective of HKScan Sweden AB
  • Presentation - A case study on date marking of yogurt products – presentation by Unilever
  • Presentation - A case study on date marking of yogurt products – presentation by Danone company

16 February – Hybrid

  • Agenda
  • Summary
  • Presentation - Update on the work of the European Consumer Food Waste Forum
  • Presentation - Overview of the most effective consumer food waste prevention interventions
  • Presentation - Building a compendium of tools to help reduce consumer food waste
  • Presentation - Disseminating the results of the European Consumer Food Waste Forum
  • Presentation - Preventing consumer food waste: the contribution of consumer segmentation studies and importance of tailoring behavioural interventions

Meetings 2022

8 July - On-line (Teams)

  • Agenda
  • Summary
  • Presentation – European Consumer Food Waste Forum: overview of work carried out so far and collaboration with the Platform sub-group – Joint Research Centre
  • Presentation – Work carried out in the context of the European Consumer Food Waste Forum – Joint Research Centre
  • Presentation – What Ireland Thinks About Food Waste – Odile Le Bolloch, Food Waste Prevention Team Lead | Circular Economy Programme, Irish Environmental Protection Agency
  • Presentation – Approaches to audience segmentation for citizen food waste prevention in the UK – Helen White, Special Advisor - Household Food Waste, WRAP
  • Presentation – WRAP and Love Food Hate Waste International’s latest work in consumer food waste – Katharine Fox, International Development Manager, WRAP
  • Presentation – Citizens Food Waste – Scotland’s Story by Ylva Haglund, Food Systems Partner, Zero Waste Scotland