Huge amounts of food for no reason thrown away, complained the European Parliament. Many Europeans do not seem to understand what the minimum shelf life means. Now there are proposals against the waste.
The Figures of the European Union are gigantic and shameful: Every European citizen wasted in the year, an average of 173 pounds of food. Ulrike Müller of the FDP in the European Parliament has the equivalent of: “Every European throws in the week, almost two pounds of food in the trash.” If this was due to spoiled goods is inevitable, you might understand it yet, but the worst part is: A good part of the food that is thrown away would be absolutely still edible. People throw away food often, because they think it’s inedible, that’s true, but not always.
“In the industrialized countries most food is wasted at the end of the supply chain, namely distribution and consumption. Everyone bears part of the responsibility to get a grip on the Problem,” summarises the Rapporteur, the Croatian social Democrat, Biljana Borzan, the misery. The EU has undertaken to reduce the amount of discarded food by half in 2013. The European Parliament has made the Commission a number of suggestions on how you could achieve that.
Misunderstood-before date
The proposals are for two findings: One, as shown by European studies, is the waste, especially to the private house. Businesses, such as Restaurants or canteens are organized better, so that less is wasted, or in a private home is easy to keep a total of more eaten. Maybe both is true.
The liberal members of the European Parliament Ulrike Müller says: “consumers are the key to success. Therefore, we need to create more awareness of the Problem, the nutrition education more to the forefront and consumers important information more accessible.” In the center – this is the second important finding is the case of the disposable decision, apparently, the date of minimum durability.
Of minimum durability the date of 16.5. not to say that the milk from 17.5. inedible would be
It has been found that many consumers understand the indication of the minimum durability in the wrong: you believe that if a yogurt has exceeded the date of minimum durability for even one day, he was corrupted, and belong in the garbage. The date is exactly that: a MINIMUM-durability date, not one of them, after which you get food poisoning. Taste, color and consistency of a product are given, until then, and with proper storage. The English name “best before” makes it particularly clear that quality and taste are “the best”, but still good.
Coffee, pasta or rice in the future without a date?
The European Parliament calls for consumers to be informed is better, but it also raises the question of whether you should waive a date of minimum durability in the case of certain foodstuffs. Jan Huitema, a Dutch farmer and member of the people’s party, cited several studies with the result: “If it is waived in the case of long-lasting products such as coffee, noodles or rice on the expiration date, twelve percent less waste.”
Also, the large majority of the Parliament wants the member States to exempt food donations from VAT, so that companies have an incentive, and less to throw away.
The Name is program: the Berlin Restaurant “Completely happy”
“Too good for the bin”
But there is something going on. There are more and more smaller and larger projects, have not only recognized the Problem, but really do something about it. Germany’s Minister of Food, Christian Schmidt, awarded recently, for example, the “Too-good-for-the-ton”prize in the category of production on the Initiative of the “dumplings cult”. It produces dumplings from your unsold bread from local bakeries.
The retail chain Edeka Südwest got the prize in the trade category for its “commodity exchange”. In addition, the company offers via the Intranet to their sales markets article, with a shortened expiration date or quickly perishable fruit and vegetables to lower reference prices. And the Berlin Restaurant “won Completely Happy” in the category of gastronomy. “Completely happy,” prepares his dishes from discarded food.
It is such ideas that the EU takes up grateful. You should reduce the mountain of leftover food, the large-scale legislative initiatives from Brussels, as well as the projects on the local level, which contribute to less valuable food lands in the garbage bin.