According to the United Nations, about one-third of total food production – about 1.3 billion metric tonnes – is lost each year across the world. In developing countries, waste occurs mainly at the start of the production chain, with crop failures or livestock diseases. In developed countries, problems arise at the other end of the chain.

The manufacture of processed foods is an inefficient use of raw materials, if we consider the nutritional output against the input. At the distribution stage, food products are lost for aesthetic reasons (supermarkets don't want bendy cucumbers or spotted apples) and through mismanagement (incorrect calculations of supply and demand, with unsold products being destroyed). In the food service industry as in the home, the problem is mainly one of buying and preparing food that cannot be consumed in time.

In the EU, about 89 million tonnes is lost every year. Belgium accounts for 3.6 million tonnes of that, or 345kg per person – the second-worst rate after the Netherlands. Taking waste by consumers alone, Belgium fares a bit better but is still above average: 89 kg per person thrown out compared to an EU average of 76kg.

Quality control

According to a report by the Flemish government’s agriculture and fisheries department issued in November, food waste forms 12% of all household waste in Flanders. About 5% is still edible. (Inedible food waste is potato peelings, banana skins, etc). One in five items of packaged food thrown away by Flemish households is still edible. But the report was mainly concerned with waste from primary sources: the agricultural and fisheries producers, where it found that there was between 534,000 and 817,000 tonnes of waste every year.

The food production industry accounts for the single largest portion of the waste produced, estimated at 63%. Households produce 25%, and the food service industry 8%. Supermarkets and other retail outlets only account for 2.5% of all losses, thanks in large part to sophisticated logistics systems to monitor supply and demand.

“If we want to solve the food problems of the world, one of our first priorities needs to be the reduction of food waste,” Peeters said. It presents an environmental as well as a social problem. “Wasting of food is also a waste of the scarce raw materials used to produce food.” The Flemish Institute for Agricultural and Fisheries Research has started projects aimed at reducing food losses. One concerns the conversion of leek greens – which are usually discarded before reaching the shops – into powder, which can then be processed into flavour enhancers for use in food processing.

Fruit growers, meanwhile, are adopting the use of nets to protect cherry trees, where the annual loss of crops because of hail can run up to 30% – a practice already common in the Netherlands and Germany. This week in the Flemish parliament, Limburg representative Veerle Heeren called for a relaxation of the requirement for building permits in the fruit-growing areas to allow growers to install netting systems.