The REFRESH Community of Experts (CoE) is a knowledge-sharing platform which seeks to promote best practice, foster discussions and improve stakeholder engagement. The website compiles initiatives in food waste prevention and reduction, which are categorised and tagged for easy user accessibility. At the same time, the website facilitates dialogue and collaboration between stakeholders.
Tesco has been making efforts to reduce food waste in its stores and warehouses. A new report finds that in order to take further effective steps it is necessary to scan and measure where and how much excess food and waste is generated during its operation. The food saving activities of TESCO are closely connected to the REFRESH pilot project “Broadening the bridge”.
The new report "Feeding surplus food to pigs safely" by REFRESH partner Feedback reveals that a change of law could liberate up to 2.5 million tonnes of currently wasted food from the UK’s manufacturing, retail and catering sectors to be fed to pigs.
In September 2018, professionals from business, science, non-governmental and international organizations gathered in Beijing for the Food Waste Reduction-Action in China forum to advocate green consumption awareness and reduction in food waste.
The Food Waste Reduction China Action Platform is a partnership initiated by IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute, CCFA and CHEARI, guided by FAO, UNEP ‘Think, Eat, Save’, and supported by REFRESH, in the aim of supporting China to achieve SDG 12.3.
As part of the "Just Like Home" pilot project, participants prepared a guide that provides useful advice to event organizers who wish to organize the events with the least amount of food waste.
In February 2018, the Hungarian National Steering Committee met again. The meeting took place at the Ministry of Agriculture, and all members of the Steering Committee were present at the meeting. The Steering Committee reviewed the projects and the cooperation among the projects coordinated by the Committee.
REFRESH researcher Karen Luyckx featured on BBC1’s Countryfile, 30th Anniversary edition, arguing the case for lifting the ban on feeding surplus food to pigs, and how this can be done safely to avoid another outbreak of Foot and Mouth Disease.
Saturday 23 June 2018 Wageningen University celebrated its 100th anniversary with the World Wide Wageningen Alumni Reunion. His Majesty King Willem-Alexander officially opened the alumni day on Wageningen Campus. Representatives from the REFRESH pilot initiative “Verspilling is Verrukkelijk” took the opportunity to offer a gift to the Dutch King: a basket full of food surplus products.
Food and nutrition security (FNS) – having access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food – supports society and communities by ensuring good health, sustainable jobs and lifelong enjoyment. To ensure that future generations achieve FNS, certain global pressures, such as population growth, urbanisation, resource scarcity and climate change, must be addressed. For example, feeding an estimated global population of 9 billion by 2050 will require a near 60 % increase in food demand.
Eighteen Steering Committee (SC) members met on 11 April 2018 for the sixth meeting of the German REFRESH national platform to continue the discussions on data collection, own activities and pilot projects.
Interactive REFRESH working groups in 2018 and 2019 provide a space for stakeholders to discuss policy options to reduce food waste. Three working groups had specific policy focuses: voluntary agreements, animal feed, and consumer behaviour. A final workshop provided an overview of the policy outcomes from the entire REFRESH project.
The first surplus food shelf in the Netherlands opened in March 2018 at George Verberne’s Jumbo supermarket in Wageningen. This store shelf features products made from ingredients which would otherwise have been wasted. As part of REFRESH, Wageningen University & Research is using this living lab for research into the consumer acceptance of such surplus products.
An online database, FoodWasteExplorer, has been developed to aid identification of market opportunities and better waste utilisation. It contains compositional data for agri-food waste streams. Representatives from the food industry, researchers, independent consultants, and animal nutritional experts are sought to help evaluate FoodWasteExplorer prior to wider release.
On the 28th of November 2017, EU commissioner Andriukaitis (Health and Food Safety) and Minister Schouten (Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality, NL) visited the ‘Food Waste Factory’ in Veghel, located in THREE SIXTY, the heart of the Dutch ecosystem for circular economy in food. They met with the Dutch frontrunners on food waste prevention.
The progress of the Refresh project and the latest initiatives of the members of the Platform were presented, the next steps to be followed in the coming months were also discussed. We enjoyed both an interesting and entertaining program.
How can we influence consumers to waste less food? Erica van Herpen talked about strategies to diminish household food waste. She argues that campaigns that emphasize the amount of food that goes to waste may backfire, and emphasizes the importance of social norms.
Nineteen companies took part in the 12th HFBA – FAO donation convoy, which drew attention to the controversy of food waste and hunger by crossing Budapest on October 16th.
Between September 28 and 29, 2017 the first Food Waste Hackathon was organized in Miskolc, by the Bay Zoltán Applied Research Nonprofit Ltd. During the event the enthusiastic participants had to design an application or web-page that can help to mitigate the amount of food waste along the entire food chain.
Tesco Europe has published its report on the amount of food surplus and waste generated during its operation for the financial year 2016/2017. The chain stores has published such data first from the sector representatives in the Central European region, for it is convinced that transparency and measurement are indispensable to taking even more effective steps to reduce waste.
