At the end of last month, the agriculture, fisheries and food commission of the Congress approved the opinion of the bill for the prevention of food losses and waste. The text, forwarded to the plenary session of the Lower House to continue with its processing, includes the objectives set by the UN for 2030 which pursue, among other things, an ambitious reduction with respect to 2020 of 50% of food waste by per capita in terms of retail sales and consumption. Yes, homes are where more food continues to be rejected, and the administrations want to remedy this.
Eurostat data exemplifies this. In 2020, Europeans wasted an average of 131 kg per capita per year (a figure that imputes to each citizen all the losses recorded in the different phases of the chain). Of these 131 kg, 78 are attributable to household waste, 53% of the total. Spain is below this average: the total rejected is 90 kilos per capita, of which 30 come from households (33%).
"The problem is important", explains José María Gil, UPC professor and director of Creda (UPC-IRTA). "We don't value food enough".
According to data from the panel for the quantification of food waste in Spanish households, prepared by the Ministry of Agriculture, in autumn-winter 2018-2019 (after several periods of a general decreasing trend) the highest value of the series: 712.2 million kg of waste. In total, 1,352.5 million kg were rejected in 2019, 1% more than in 2018. In 2020 the figure tended to stabilize, although it also grew: 1,364 million kg of food ended up in the trash In favor of the citizens, it must be said that during the pandemic much more was cooked at home and, despite this, the waste was similar to 2019.
After the stabilization of the figures in 2020, a slight decline came in 2021 (the last year for which there is data). The course closed with 1,246 million kg rejected (8.7% less than in 2020). In addition, the panel emphasized, “the awareness of waste” increased: more than 1 in 4 households did not reject any type of food (26%), while in 2020 it was 24.7%. "There are still no reliable indicators, but it seems that in 2022, and especially in 2023, waste has been reduced considerably", predicts Gil. Although one might think that this reduction is a response to greater awareness, there is one variable that cannot go unnoticed. "The biggest positive effect could be due to the increase in prices", assures Gil. Also in 2021, when products such as meat and fish, as well as rice and pasta, "had a significant increase in price", says the panel. "We work for incentives", declares Gil. "We value what is scarce, and the prices somewhat reflect the scarcity." Jordi Oliver, executive director of Inèdit, a strategic eco-innovation study born from the UAB, sees it in the same way. "I don't think that the public will suddenly be more aware. Surely there is an economic reason."
It becomes difficult to know, according to Gil, if there are other variables that could be helping to reduce waste and to what extent. And all because of the lack of a joint action, he says, to know how to proceed and what results the actions carried out have obtained. "There should be much more collaboration between all agents in the chain. Even replicating what the EU has done, which has created a commission of experts to agree on what can be done".
In his opinion, the lack of consensus is reflected in the Eurostat data. "They are very heterogeneous. We do not know if this is due to the fact that each country has the freedom to establish the method of quantification or that the situation is very different in each state”. What's interesting - he underlines - "is the reduction": "If I have a blurry photo, but I always have that blurry photo, I can more or less see its evolution. I want to see what happened at the beginning and also at the end, I'm not so much interested in the amount as the reduction".
