Food waste is a serious problem: around 88 million tonnes of food are wasted each year throughout the EU supply chain, from primary production to consumption, with associated costs of EUR 143 billion. The associated environmental impact is also enormous: global food loss and waste equals 8-10% of total anthropogenic GHG emissions and costs around $1 trillion per year, and 30% of agricultural land is wasted. The situation may be even worse, as statistics indicate that 70 per cent of all food lost or wasted by humans may not be recorded because it comes from primary production or is used as feed. At the same time, the evaluation of this problem remains unresolved, not only because it is extremely complex due to the lack of open data and the absence of a standard methodology for a comprehensive evaluation in real food systems, but also because it affects the commitment of private entities that need to evaluate the profitability and sustainability of food waste prevention and reduction solutions in order to be able to act.

ToNoWaste it is a 48-month project in which 21 institutions from 7 countries collaborate to overcome the challenge of sustainable food production and consumption with a multi-actor and interdisciplinary approach that considers not only agronomic, economic, environmental and business model challenges, but also other transversal aspects such as psychology, law and social innovation to also fight against social and gender inequalities.

ToNoWaste will inspire market players to use evidence- and science-based assessment tools and data to make better decisions towards more sustainable food production and consumption patterns. Start with research on what makes the best decision regarding food waste actions in the fresh food value chain. It is an open innovation ecosystem designed to leverage previous findings to identify social, technical/environmental, economic, political/legal, ethical and demographic drivers and to collaborate with ongoing R&D actions to propose comprehensive solutions.

The Universitat Jaume I in Castelló coordinates the 21 institutions from 7 countries that collaborate in the ToNoWaste project. Follow the project’s social media channels: Twitter and LinkedIn