A number of food traders from Germany are working together in the Dialogue Forum on Wholesale and Retail Trade in order to reduce food loss and waste in their enterprises by 2030. The project partners have now published the first figures. In 2019, the food retail sector recorded roughly 500 000 tonnes of food waste. This amount does not yet include food waste occurring in the wholesale sector – these figures will be included in the future.

The dialogue forum is part of the German Federal Government’s National Strategy for Food Waste Reduction. Currently, the forum involves 21 enterprises that are adopting concrete measures which contribute to reducing food waste. A statement of participation to this initiative was signed in June 2020, through which participating enterprises have committed to implementing food waste reduction measures – some of them binding, others voluntary.

A recently published interim report provides information on the current status of implementation of the measures included in the statement of participation. According to the report, 156 measures have already been implemented, with 70 of them aimed at optimising internal processes, 49 concerned improving collaboration with their suppliers, and 37 targeted the objective to improve the donation process.

Related links:

• Interim report [content in DE]
• Monitoring report [DE] [EN]
• Statement of participation [content in DE]
• National Strategy for Food Waste Reduction

For more information about this dialogue forum, please check a previous news item from the newsletter’s June 2020 edition: ‘Wholesale and retail sectors commit to act against food waste’.