Spain has decided to continue an awareness campaign to reduce the amount of wasted food, as about 7.7 million tons of food that is perfectly able to be eaten is thrown away in the country every year, an official said.
This is what Fernando Burgaz, Director of the Food Industry at the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Environment, told Xinhua during a recent interview held a year after the start of the ministry's More Food and Less Waste campaign.
The campaign runs in line with agreements put into action by the European Union, where according to data published in the ministry website, it is estimated that an average of 179 kg of food per inhabitant is wasted every year, without counting fish thrown back into the sea, or food wasted in agriculture during the production process.
In crisis hit Spain images of people waiting outside supermarkets at closing time to collect food that is thrown away because it has reached its "sell by" date have caused outrage, but supermarkets are not the main culprits in wasting food.
"Our estimates are that the point of sale is not the place where there is the biggest loss. It is about 5 percent of the total," said Burgaz.
He explained, "The biggest waste takes place in homes and in restaurants, with homes responsible for around 30-35 percent of waste and restaurants around 20 percent."
In order to reduce this waste, the More Food and Less Waste campaign has looked to raise awareness in a series of ways from "initiatives with the industry and producers" to holding workshops with children, the distribution of handouts containing a guide to good practices to food producers, homes and restaurants.
Some of the advice is simple, such as ensuring the correct storage of food, or writing a shopping list before going out in order to avoid impulse purchases or buying too much food.
Meanwhile, among other things, restaurants are asked to "offer a 'doggy bag' to allow them to take any unfinished food home with them."
The More Food and Less Waste campaign is taking a long term view of the issue. "We are going to continue with this for the next few years," explained Burgaz.
"We have to change these habits bit by bit, by insisting and showing what are the possibilities and what is the responsibility we all have assume as consumers in moments of economic difficulty. We can't throw food away when there are people in need," said Burgaz.
