Agri-food industries and the challenge of reducing food wastage: an analysis of legal opportunities

Food wastage poses environmental and economic as well as social and ethical questions. The significance of these questions places the food wastage issue to the attention of the institutions, civil society and academia. International and EU documents widely discuss the role of some legal disciplines in the generation of wastage, both as a direct cause and as a mean for its reduction. So far, the majority of public and private interventions in Europe focused on the distribution and consumption segment of the food supply chain, while a lack of reduction measures is registered in the previous segments. Nevertheless, the European Commission estimates that the food waste attributable to industrial processing is around 39%. The paper is aimed at analysing the EU legal framework which influences the generation of wastage during the food processing chain. It addresses the emerging legal opportunities in reducing food wastage, recognising two main areas: labelling strategies and by-products valorisation. After a synthetic exposition of the data related to food wastage (Section 1), the paper shows how in the European legislation food safety requirements and food waste reduction strategies interrelate (Section 2). The paper moves on to assess the EU legal framework on waste, in particular, the definition and the potential valorisation of food by-products, (Section 3) the food labelling regulation and the contractual practices (Section 4), underlying the opportunities for food wastage reduction. In conclusion, the paper highlights the emerging legal opportunities and the related shortcomings of the potential strategies for reducing the wastage generation during the food processing chain.