Safe Food Advocacy Europe (SAFE) has welcomed the adoption of the waste framework directive by the European Parliament, which will introduce the EU's first binding targets for food waste reduction.

These targets will apply nationally, and must be met by December 31, 2030.

The target for every country is a 10% reduction in processing and manufacturing, compared to the amount generated as an annual average between 2021 and 2023.

For distribution, restaurants, food services, and households, the target is a 30% reduction per capita.

SAFE's secretary general, Floriana Cimmarusti said: “Food Loss and Waste is a massive obstacle to sustainability and the fight against climate change. 

"We welcome the introduction of these binding targets in Europe, and we encourage European institutions to extend these targets beyond 2030 and to explore additional policy actions to be taken,” Cimmarusti added.

Cutting EU food waste by half would feed all 37 million Europeans facing food insecurity. In 2022, around 132 kg of food waste per inhabitant were generated in the EU, according to SAFE.

The deputy director of SAFE, Luigi Tozzi said: "The current food system is inefficient: economic structures lead to overproduction of food, without ensuring neither a fair distribution of food nor a fair redistribution of profit, globally.

"Overproduced raw materials from developing countries are used in food overproduction in wealthy nations. This inevitably generates food waste, depletes local resources, contributes to climate change, creates social injustice, and drives up food prices.

"We must change this production system, in order to effectively combat food loss and waste," the SAFE director added.

SAFE outlined that food loss and waste has been one of the core topics of its advocacy work for a number of years.

Currently, SAFE participates in three EU-funded projects, working on solutions for food waste reduction across the food value chain.