The Swedish Board of Agriculture has worked on a food waste project and found that definition of food waste and food loss is of high importance. In order to be able to compare figures between countries and over years, we need to use the same definitions. There is an ongoing project in the EU, called FUSIONS, working with this matter. The Nordic Council of Ministers are currently initiating a Nordic project and one issue is to work on definitions alongside with FUSIONS.
We have also found that we need more data on food waste and food loss from all parts of the food chain. Swedish Ministry for Rural Affairs is initiating a national project where one issue is data collection where data is currently missing.
In both the Nordic and the national project, we also want to investigate what policies and standards give us unnecessary food waste. We also want to see if there are any differences between the Nordic countries in terms of interpretation etc.
We have also identified a need to connect food waste to other food issues, such as food safety, health but also to food "experience". In other words to work both on enjoying food and taking care of food, alongside with safety and health aspects.
Ulrika Franke