Italy launches food waste prevention program

Since 2008, thanks to an anti-waste law, Last Minute Market has developed innovative services for the development of unsold goods in favor of charities institutions and has offered services to companies and institutions to prevent waste at its origin.

The founder of Last Minute Market and leader of Wednesday's task force Andrea Segre said that Italy's program was in line with the aim of European Resolution against Food Waste to halve food waste by 2025 and to establish a European Year against food waste.

Not only PINPAS will set and monitor waste reduction targets for each step of the food supply chain, but will also launch the first awareness campaign in Italy aimed at raising public concern on food waste that overall reaches out to touch 0.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), Segre told Xinhua.

The program's goal was to achieve by 2020 a 5 percent reduction per unit of GDP of municipal waste, 10 percent of hazardous waste and 5 percent of special waste. "Two elements are especially important to achieve this goal: collaboration between organizations and awareness in education," Segre said.

"In our campaigns, we always start with the assumption that food must be put at the center of our life because it is closely connected to human health, environment protection and quality of life," he explained to Xinhua.

Italy's Presidency of the Council of the European Union in the second half of this year and the Milan Expo 2015, whose theme "Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life" is aimed at arousing awareness regarding global hunger, will be two important opportunities for Italy to speak out against food waste, he said.