EU Food Loss and Waste Prevention Hub

In the interest of understanding the current state of play of interventions addressing food waste, the on-going CHORIZO project (https://chorizoproject.eu) undertook a comprehensive evidence-based identification and analysis of interventions addressing food waste across the European Union Member States, Norway, and the United Kingdom. Via desktop research and literature review, 395 interventions were identified covering all stages of the supply chain from primary production to end-user consumption. Interviews were also conducted for 46 of the interventions with stakeholders across the food supply chain - from the private and public sector, civil society organizations, educational institutions, and national food waste-related platforms – to obtain more in-depth data. In an effort to provide comparative insight into the applicability of particular interventions addressing specific cases of food waste generation along the supply chain, two composite indices were created which categorize the data in accordance with the food waste hierarchy pyramid, social norms, as well as the more quantitative dimensions such as economic impacts, investment costs, and cost-benefit analysis. The aim is that the methodology used in the indices should help stakeholders determine how applicable a type of food waste reduction intervention might be for themselves and their work – i.e. perhaps the intervention can be built upon, is a model to follow, or provides “lessons learned” in the sector when it comes to reducing food waste and addressing the drivers of food waste-related behaviour.