Around 1.3 billion tonnes of the world’s food is wasted annually, according to Robert van Otterdijk, agro-industry officer for the UN’s Food & Agriculture Organisation.
The claims, which were made during the annual Sustainable Foods Summit in Amsterdam earlier this month, state that North American consumers are the most responsible for waste.
Otterdijk believes the food industry must look to enforce strategies for loss and waste reduction because of their link to food inflation (reducing prices), food security (more accessible) and health (nutrition and obesity).
The Sustainable Foods Summit brought together 140 senior executives from across the European food industry.
Other highlights included a talk from food technology supplier Genetic ID, where the company claimed five per cent of all food products in Europe are currently affected by fraud.
The company discussed how the use of novel fingerprinting methods, advances in certification methods, mass spectrometry and isotope analysis could lessen the issue.
No comments yet