Is food waste illegal?
Project overview
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Short summary
This project will investigate whether the resource conservation requirements in Swedish environmental legislation can be applied alongside food legislation, without setting aside food safety. It will also investigate the impact of implementing stricter food waste legislation.
We believe that there is great under-utilized potential in existing legislation since the rules are not applied. We will therefore assess how the legislative practice could be changed to save natural resources. However, we also recognize the need to refine environmental and food legislation to better meet the needs of a circular economy in society. Existing food legislation focuses primarily on meeting basic hygiene requirements, i.e. making food suitable for human consumption from a microbiological perspective. The food waste issue is recognized and objectives have been set, but most legislation lacks powerful tools to reduce food waste.
Resource management must not be accompanied by reduced food security. We will investigate how food business operators can comply with current legislation regarding reduced food waste, focusing on technical, personnel and hygienic aspects.