Food waste is a cross-cutting issue that needs to be addressed urgently to reduce the environmental and climate impacts of food systems and support the transition towards sustainable food systems, which can ensure food security for a growing world population.

In 2020, in the EU, nearly 59 million tonnes of food waste (around 131 kg per person) were generated, with an associated market value of EUR 132 billion. It is estimated that 53 % of total food waste occurred in households, amounting to 70 kg per capita on average (Eurostat, 2023), leading to significant environmental and social consequences.

Food waste generated in the EU in 2020 is estimated to be responsible for 252 Mt of CO2 (Sala et al., 2023), accounting for about 16 % of the total greenhouse gas emissions from the EU food system.

The EU and its Member States are committed to meeting the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Target 12.3 to halve, per capita, global food waste at the retail and consumer level by 2030. The EU has implemented a dedicated action plan to reduce food loss and waste, including regulatory and non-regulatory actions, initially as part of the Circular Economy Action Plan (2015) and since 2020, under the European Green Deal’s Farm to Fork Strategy. The establishment of a common monitoring methodology in the EU and the adoption of EU guidelines on food donation represent some key milestones in the European Commission’s endeavours to harmonise legislation and clarify how relevant measures in EU legislation apply to food waste prevention. The Commission aims not only to lay down clear obligations for Member States concerning the reduction of food waste, supported by a clear legislative framework empowering them to take effective action, but also to propose the setting of legally binding food waste reduction targets for Member States in order to accelerate the EU’s progress towards SDG Target 12.3. The Commission also supports the development and sharing of best practices and solutions to reduce food waste across the EU.

The European Consumer Food Waste Forum (ECFWF) is a pilot project, funded by the European Parliament and coordinated by the European Commission (DG Health and Food Safety and Joint Research Centre). Considering that most food waste occurs at the consumption level, this project aims to create tools and share best practices to inform future food waste reduction interventions that target consumers, while promoting replicability across Member States at all levels and for all relevant stakeholders.

The Forum developed a compendium of six different types of interventions that a wide range of stakeholders can apply to support consumers in reducing food waste both in- and out-of-home. These types of interventions are:

1. Prompts and tools for households

2. Coaching for households

3. Local awareness campaigns

4. Classroom education programmes and actions in school canteens

5. Nudges out-of-home (food services)

6. National food waste prevention programmes

The compendium also outlines key tools and recommendations that are transversal to selected types of interventions within the scope of the ECFWF, but also to other types of interventions not covered by the Forum’s work. These include:

• An evaluation framework and a standardised data collection protocol to facilitate data gathering.

• A simple introduction for practitioners on how to use experiments to rigorously evaluate consumer food waste interventions.

• A basic introduction to the potential benefits and challenges of consumer segmentation studies and techniques for targeting/tailoring interventions.

• A set of methods to quantify food waste, including a food waste prevention calculator that helps quantify the environmental impacts and potential trade-offs of food waste prevention by applying life cycle assessment.