News item | 04-09-2025 | 11:30 am
The Netherlands throws less food away. Food waste in the Netherlands has fallen by 17%from 2015 to 2023, according to the new food waste Monitor. This is stated in a letter to the House of Representatives of Minister Wiersma of Agriculture, Fisheries, Food Security and Nature (LVVN). In the coming years, the Ministry of LVVN, together with the Foundation Together against Food Wasting (STV) and the Nutrition Center, will continue to work on combating food waste. With the aim: in 2030 halve the waste compared to 2015.
Minister Wiersma: “Throwing away food is sin. I think there is too little awareness about the fact that so much food is still wasted every year. We expect farmers to handle nutrients efficiently while we throw sustainably produced in the Kliko at home and in the hospitality industry. That must and can be aware of that. to stake.”
Food waste halving
Still, 1/5th of all the food in the Netherlands is never eaten. This not only lost valuable foods, but also the hard work, energy and raw materials that are needed to produce the food. In 2030, the Netherlands wants to halve the food waste compared to 2015.
Since that time, many steps have been taken with visible results. The STV foundation, supported by the Ministry of LVVN, cooperates with, among others, retailers on awareness and behavioral change. Via a network approach, STV facilitates chain parties to develop a concrete approach together to reduce waste within the chain and for more than 130 companies the instrument suicite is used.
The Nutrition Center supports this with campaigns and tools such as the Bewaarwijzer, which gives tips on how to best save food. Also this year there is a waste -free week (8 to 14 September) to make people aware of the impact of food waste and to stimulate less food.
86 million meals a week
The newest food waste monitor shows that in 2023 in total (including business, restaurants and households) 2,271 Kiloton or 2,271 million kilograms of food was wasted. That is a decrease of 17% compared to 2015. That is enough for more than 4.5 billion meals, around 86 million meals a week.
In the past 10 years, it has been focused on raising awareness, education and stimulation of supermarkets and consumers. This shows that the approach of the Ministry of LVVN, STV and the Voedingscentrum works. Yet there is still work to be done to achieve the goal in 2030.
In the coming years, therefore, extra focuses will be made to increase knowledge and improve cooperation throughout the entire chain. In particular, the links ‘processing and manufacture’ are in this way: they are responsible for approximately one third of the total food waste in the Netherlands. It is therefore important that more commitment and transparency are realized at this level. The minister encourages companies in this sector to join the STV Foundation and to start suicide.
In addition, the focus is on making better use of residual flows for, for example, animal feed. Wageningen University and Research also conducts research into instruments that can be used to prevent losses during or after harvest.
Increase knowledge about expiration data
Uncertainty about shelf life data is an important cause of food waste. Every year, around 60 million kilograms of good food is wasted by throwing away products after the expiration date. On a can of tomato blocks, for example, has a “at least shelf life to” (THT) date. After this date, the quality, such as taste, odor or color of the product, can slowly deteriorate. But if the can is still whole, you can still eat it without risk for health years after the THT date. This is in contrast to products with the ‘to be used to’ (TGT) date that can no longer be eaten in connection with food safety, such as raw fish.
In order to better inform people about sustainability, the Coalition is set for shelf life, a collaboration of, among other things, supermarkets and the food industry. The work of this coalition is already visible on more than 3500 products through the icon ‘Kijk-noot test’ and a hand on packaging. The number of products continues to grow, with which producers and retailers also take their responsibility to waste less.
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Collaboration prevents waste and supports food aid
In the Netherlands, many people depend on food aid. The central government is committed to guaranteeing food security for these auxiliary points and links this to reducing food waste. The Ministry of LVVN therefore grants a project subsidy to STV. With this subsidy, the foundation can start a chain cooperation, which means that unexpectedly rejected products end up with the consumer. This prevents waste and reinforces food security for the auxiliary points.