A recent article in the Spanish "digitalmagazine" analyzes the complexity of the causes and solutions to food waste in Europe. Spanish Refresh partner, CREDA-UPC-IRTA, is working with WRAP as wells as key national actors to tackle food waste in Catalonia and Spain.
Gastrofira is the catering service of “Feria de Barcelona”, one of the most important European trade fair organisations. They have joined the Refresh platform, and specifically Spain’s first pilot project, as a way to reduce their food waste.
As part of REFRESH we are reaching out to capture information for an up-to-date overview of current and best practice commercial examples of re-using or re-processing food sector by-products and wastes. Please contribute knowledge and contacts to the survey by 31 October 2017! Contributing to this survey supports the wider objectives of REFRESH for an efficient and sustainable use of non-preventable food sector by-products.
A contest for raising awareness about food waste is taking place in China. It challenges participants to submit images or videos describing new ways to treat food waste, investigate the phenomenon and/or offer solutions for better promoting awareness on the issue. It builds on the previous REFRESH contest carried out in Europe.
The German PWP proceeds as planned: Thirteen representatives from retail, industry, NGO, science and associations came together on April 6 to discuss the aggregated findings of individual baseline activities as well as next steps for pilot projects.
In early 2017 the first actIvity of the pilot project "Gastrofira" has been completed. Food waste generated by the catering service of Feria de Barcelona (trade fair organisation) was quantified during an international event. Food waste data from kitchen and dining room has been gathered in order to establish a baseline for upcoming events’ reduction interventions.
February 2017, 16 organizations signed the Spanish REFRESH Platform Framework for Action showing their commitment to fight against food waste over the next 2 years.
Since its last “Steering Committee” meeting on 6 October 2016 the German Pilot Working Platform (PWP) started to take action. Member companies initiated individual baseline activities with first insights expected in April 2017. Furthermore, the PWP discussed the priority areas for Germany and how these could be addressed through targeted interventions.
Wastewatchers and Transition Surplus Food Project were selected as winners by the expert jury, and Zero Waste Aiud gathered over 17,000 votes to win the Public Award!
The Dutch Taskforce, launched in January 2017, aims to contribute to preventing and reducing food waste, and become an international frontrunner in the valorisation of agri-food residual streams. The Taskforce is a coalition of companies across the full food supply chain, national and local authorities, a civil society organisation and other invited members. The first official meeting took place in March 2017.
Registration is open for the REFRESH Food Waste 2017 Conference, 18 May in Berlin.
Public Award for REFRESH Food Waste Solution Contest is open between 1-28 February 2017.
Voting is now open for the Public Award of the REFRESH Food Waste Solution Contest! The REFRESH Food Waste Solution Contest was launched in 2016 and received over fifty project submissions from across Europe. The aim of the contest is to recognize groundbreaking projects and ideas addressing food waste.
Over 100 professionals from government, the business community, science institutions, non-governmental organizations and international organizations gathered in Beijing on November 26th 2016 to launch REFRESH in China and promote the knowledge-sharing initiative for the global measurement and reduction of food loss and waste.
The European Commission has established a Platform on Food Losses and Food Waste, bringing together Member State experts, EU & international bodies and all actors across the food value chain including NGOs. The Platform will give support to define the measures needed to achieve SDG 12.3 by facilitating inter-sector co-operation, sharing best practices and results, and evaluating progress made over time.
The REFRESH team presented a poster on assessing life cycle impacts of food waste at the Recy&DepoTech conference last week in Leoben, Austria. This bi-annual conference is one of the most important waste conferences in German-speaking areas and had more than 500 participants. The conference equally addresses researchers and practitioners.
REFRESH, a European project on food waste, has launched its Food Waste Solution Contest and is looking for the freshest ideas to tackle food waste across Europe. The contest aims to highlight and support solutions to food waste and food packaging waste at any part(s) of the food chain.
The FUSIONS project has laid the ground for more accurate data on food waste, while simultaneously showing how social innovation contributes to solving this complex societal challenge.
Finding out how to prevent in-home food waste requires insights into consumer behaviours, opinions, and day-to-day lives. To gain this knowledge, REFRESH organised twenty-four focus group discussions, six each in Germany, Hungary, Spain and The Netherlands. The focus groups delivered a variety of striking findings.
REFRESH action in China is picking up speed, including research, a policy proposal, preparation of the national platform, funding applications, and kick-off conference preparation.
