Halve food waste by 2025 – govt

An average person in France throws away 20kg of edible food a year, costing a household €400

THE 1.2 million tonnes of food thrown away in France should be halved by 2025, the government has announced.

Each year the average person throws away 20kg of waste food, costing roughly €400 per household annually. This figure includes 7kg of food thrown away with the packaging unopened.

That makes a total of 1.2 million tonnes for France (a billion tones of food waste in the world, worth roughly $750 billion) and the government has said it wishes to see this figure halved by 2025.

The minister for the food industry, Guillaume Garot, said: “There is something scandalous, profoundly unfair, in the fact that food is thrown away while so many French depend on food aid to live or that millions of men, women and children don’t have enough to eat.”

Among the measures already announced are a national day against food waste, training at catering and agricultural schools, better methods to make food donations and the replacement or removal of best-before dates.

This week is the Semaine du Gout (Taste week) and several events are taking place today to highlight good food, how to make best use of food products and cut waste. In Paris there is a ‘grand banquet’ where top chefs will show how they cut waste in their kitchens.

Other events are taking place at Lille, Montauban, Saint-Pierre-Des-Corps and Avignon.

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