Talks between the EU’s three regulating bodies begin on Tuesday (30th May) to decide the next 14 years of EU food waste policy. The three-way negotiations, called trialogues, will be a showdown between the European Parliament and the European Council and Commission. Representatives from the UK are taking part in negotiations on the new policy, which could come into force before Britain is set to leave the EU.

Waste campaigners have criticised the European Council and Commission for their lack of ambition ahead of these final negotiations, and urged them to unite behind the European Parliament’s food waste proposals. The EU Parliament is calling for concrete targets and increased monitoring of food waste, and campaigners from Friends of the Earth and European Environmental Bureau have pointed out the Commission’s position is not based on evidence gathered at the EU executive’s request. A 2010 Commission-backed review concluded that definite targets should replace voluntary measures for food waste reduction in the food industry, but the Commission’s stance has continued to favour a voluntary approach.

Campaigners also pointed out that the Commission withdrew more ambitious food waste plans under the first Circular Economy Package in 2014, only to replace them with less stringent measures under the 2015 Package. In January this year, the EU Court of Auditors criticised the Commission over its stance on food waste issues.

The EU Parliament, on the other hand, is pushing for binding targets (to reduce food waste by 30% by 2025 and 50% by 2030 throughout the entire farm-to-fork supply chain), with efforts to measure EU food waste more accurately by 2020 and the introduction of a ‘food waste hierarchy’ - as food wasted nearer the end of supply chains, more resource-dense foods like meat and foods that have undergone processing or packing all have a greater environmental impact than outsized vegetable crops lost at farm level.  

Over 50 organisations from 18 EU countries and over 70,000 people through Change.org and Global Citizen petitions have backed a campaign started by campaign group This Is Rubbish, which supports binding targets like the EU Parliament’s commitment to a 50% reduction in food waste. Campaigners have suggested the Commission is bowing to industry lobbying pressure in watering down its food waste ambitions.

On Monday, Martin Bowman, Campaigner for This Is Rubbish, said, “We condemn the weakness of the European Council and Commission’s positions on food waste, and urgently call on them to up their ambition and unite behind the European Parliament’s ambitious food waste proposals. Binding farm-to-fork food waste targets are vitally needed to face the urgent challenges of climate change, land and water depletion, and food poverty"

"Targets to halve EU food waste by 2030 vitally need to include the whole supply chain from farm to fork, because up to 59% of the EU’s food waste occurs before it gets to the retail shelves, on farms and in factories. We need the Commission to review of making these targets binding by 2020 to ensure member states take them seriously and we don’t end up with tokenistic action. We see time and again that voluntary codes have uneven rates of uptake and often deliver lacklustre results, whereas binding regulation delivers a level playing field and leads to swift and dramatic improvements. And we need to see a food waste hierarchy adopted, to prioritise feeding food to people and designing waste out of the system in the first place.

"The European Parliament’s proposals deliver on all of those points, whereas the Council and Commission's proposals risk leaving us with non-binding targets which sideline huge amounts of food waste in the food industry in favour of an approach skewed towards consumers. This is a big opportunity for the Council and Commission to rally round the Parliament's inspirational food waste targets.”