HEALTH AND FOOD SAFETY

Second National Dialogue Forum on Food Waste Reduction in Germany & Voluntary agreement on the reduction of food waste in out-of-home consumption

Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture/Photothek/Gärtner

date: 22/04/1999

Voluntary agreement on the reduction of food waste in out-of-home consumption

Image: © Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture/Photothek/Gärtner

The Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture of Germany and 7 business associations signed a voluntary agreement on the reduction of food waste in the 'out-of-home' consumption stage of the food value chain. The signatories, representatives of various sub-sectors, committed to reduce food waste by 30% by 2025 and by 50% by 2050. In addition, future measures were defined, for example:

to advocate for the establishment of a neutral institution for the implementation of this agreement;
to raise awareness among consumers, staff and other stakeholders and
to motivate the members of business associations to join the agreement at company level, as well.

This agreement marks the end of a three-year project, conducted by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Germany and partners, to develop the above mentioned agreement and measures in a structured dialogue. At the time, twelve model companies testing these measures were able to reduce food waste by 25% on average.

Second National Dialogue Forum on Food Waste Reduction in Germany

On 10 March 2021, around 120 stakeholders from politics, administration, businesses, civil society and academia joined the second national dialogue forum on food waste reduction, held virtually (the first national dialogue forum took place in Berlin in 6 November 2019).

The German Federal Minister of Food and Agriculture, Julia Klöckner, discussed the current challenges in food waste reduction with important stakeholders and informed about successes already achieved. For example:

In model projects for the out-of-home catering, an average of 25% of food waste could be saved;
22 wholesale and retail companies committed to adopt binding measures to reduce food waste;
There are improved food waste data in the retail sector.

In addition, each of the five sectoral dialogue forums (farm, processing, wholesale, retail and consumer levels) took stock of achievements and gave an outlook on upcoming projects.

Last, but not least, Minister Julia Klöckner took the chance to publicly announce the nominees of this year’s ‘Too good for the bin!’ - Federal Award. The winners were announced on 20 May 2021 by the Minister during a virtual ceremony.