In the context of Expo Milano 2015, the European Commission is pleased to invite you to the international conference "Fight Food Waste, Feed the Planet".

The conference will take place on 15 October 2015 at the Expo Conference Centre, in Milan.

"Fight Food Waste, Feed the Planet" aims to contribute to the setting of EU and global directions for food waste prevention, focusing in particular on the importance of effective inter-sector co-operationfrom farm to fork. The conference will gather EU and international policy makers as well as all stakeholders involved in the food chain – from industry to non-governmental organizations, the scientific community and consumers – in order to share achievements to date and foster an open and action-oriented debate.

FUSIONS partner and Denmark’s largest NGO against food waste, Stop Wasting Food movement Denmark (Stop Spild Af Mad) is celebrating its 7 years birthday with great news: within the last 5 years, food waste in Denmark is reduced by 4,4 BILLION DKK, equivalent to 25%.

Stop Wasting Food movement Denmark (Stop Spild Af Mad), the many volunteers, the Danish people and stakeholders from the entire value chain have contributed to significant reduction in food waste. Since 2010, Denmark’s food waste is reduced by 25% and 4,4 billion DKK.

This looks like European record, only followed by the United Kingdom’s reduction of food waste with 21% during the years 2008-2013.

Since September 2014, the online platform, Foodwe.org, has been providing professionals in the food industry the opportunity to offer and sell their unsold but safe-to-eat products online to charity organisations.

Foodwe platform won in May 2015 the European Waste Reduction Week prize in the NGO/association category. The theme of the 2014 edition was reducing food wastage.  A total of 12,000 projects from around Europe were realized to the 6th Waste Reduction Week.

In just a few months, Foodwe, has been able to offer over 25 tons of food to charity groups in Belgium. Food industry professionals can make donations but can also offer to sell at a maximum of 60% of retail price, safe-to-eat products which have not met their market: those too close to their sell-by date which means they cannot be stored, delivered, and then sold to the public, and those which were discarded at an earlier stage for not conforming to the norm, for example fruit which look “ugly”, which although perfectly healthy, is usually rejected and thrown away.

Foodwe wants to give Social and Economic value to Food Waste by helping farmers, producers, retailers to sell or donate to charity food that is still perfectly consumable but goes to waste today.

Interested to work or use Foodwe ? : www.foodwe.org – This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

After having withdrawn the Circular Economy Package last December, the Commission is aiming to present a new, more ambitious circular economy strategy late in 2015, addressing a range of economic sectors, including waste. The strategy will be fully aligned with the priorities of the new Commission.

It will comprise a revised legislative proposal on waste and a Communication setting out an action plan on the circular economy for the rest of this Commission’s term of office. The action plan will cover the whole value chain, and focus on concrete measures with clear EU added value, aiming at ‘closing the loop’ of the circular economy. The Commission is engaged in a thorough reflection on how the objective of circular economy can be reached in an efficient way that is fully compatible with the jobs and growth agenda.

A Roadmap for this initiative can be found here.

As part of the process, the Commission is launching a public consultation on the subject from the 28th May until the 20th August 2015.

The EC welcomes contributions from citizens, organisations and public authorities. Received contributions will be published on the Internet.

For more information, please visit the EC website.