HEALTH AND FOOD SAFETY

National week of action 'Germany saves food!'; applications for the Federal Prize 2021 ‘Too good for the bin!’ are open; dialogue forum to reduce food waste at household level

Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture

date: 22/10/2020

National week of action 'Germany saves food!'

The first International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste on 29 September 2020 marked the end of the first national week of action Germany saves food! Over 130 events to promote the reduction of food waste took place, both virtually and onsite. The Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL) invited interested stakeholders to take a seat at a virtual table and share their own tips and tricks to reduce food waste. At the end of the action week, the Federal Minister for Food and Agriculture, Julia Klöckner, visited a model canteen of the dialogue forum for out-of-home consumption. The twelve model enterprises of the dialogue forum, which could reduce food waste by 25% on average, showcased simple activities on how out-of-home service businesses can do this as well.

Apply now: ‘Too good for the bin!’ – Federal Prize 2021

The Federal Minister for Food and Agriculture, Julia Klöckner, announced the start of the application period for the ‘Too good for the bin!’ – Federal Prize 2021. The initiative awards outstanding projects with innovative ideas to reduce food waste in Germany in five different categories: agriculture & production, retail, food services, society and education & digitisation. Businesses, start-ups, food services companies, research institutes, private persons, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and municipalities are invited to submit their applications until 13 November 2020 by following this link [content in DE].

Reduction of household food waste

In Germany, each citizen generates on average 75 kilograms of food waste per year at home – around 50% of the German food waste levels overall. Therefore, the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture started funding a dialogue forum hosted by the Ecologic Institut, the Technische Universität Berlin and Slow Food Germany. The partners will develop concrete actions and measures, which will aim to reduce household food waste and make it easy for consumers to reduce food waste in their everyday life.