A new subsidies scheme has been launched by the Danish Minister for Environment and Food aimed at tackling food wastage…
Esben Lunde Larsen, the Danish Minister for Environment and Food, has launched a new subsidies scheme to combat food waste. The scheme will support projects that tackle the issue from food production to consumers’ homes.
According to the figures, the average Dane reportedly wastes more than a kilogram of food every week and throws away food worth DKK 3,200 each year. The minister hopes this new subsidy will dramatically reduce food waste in the country.
He said: “Each year, consumers and retailers alone waste enough food to fill 9,730 supermarket trolleys every day!
“And there’s more, because food waste arises in all parts of the chain from production, to businesses, to wholesalers, to supermarkets to homes.
“Throwing away such valuable food is a waste of money and it is an environmental problem. Therefore, we’ll be supporting projects that can minimise food waste.”
Previously, the ministry has supported other projects aimed at tackling this issue, including developing teaching materials about food waste, conducting campaigns about date labelling for consumers, and supporting collaboration between food producers and kitchens to ensure food that is deemed the wrong shape is used in cooking.
Lunde Larsen added: “I hope that this will make a notable difference to food waste. We’ll be supporting projects that can show that they really do make a difference and projects that can be expanded to a larger scale, for example.”
The new subsidies pool opened at the end of June.
