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Denmark: Government thinktank to tackle food waste

Denmark: Government thinktank to tackle food waste

Denmark is going to develop the national strategy to reduce food waste, the Ministry of Environment and Food has even announced a thinktank, TheLocal reported.

In Denmark, the food sectors and other businesses should cooperate to work together to keep wastage of food to a minimum. The thinktank scheduled to meet with the ministry in September, it will provide to the businesses, researchers, authorities, food sectors and the agriculture a brilliant opportunity to discuss all the aspects of the cooperation. As Jakob Ellemann-Jensen, head of Danish Ministry of Environment and Food, noted in his written comment, the thinktank will be able to advise, propose initiatives, gather information and try funding models and other methods for reducing wastage of food and food products.

“If we want to do something good for our environment and our limited resources, reduction of food waste and loss of food products is a very good place to start,”

Ellemann-Jensen wrote in addition to the official release issued earlier this year. That document shows official figures showing a reduction in food waste amounting to 14,000 tonnes between 2011 and 2017. The Ministry of Environment and Food will present the thinktank at a meeting at which businesses, organisations and other stakeholders will be able to participate and join the work to reduce food waste.

That corresponds to a reduction of eight percent per person per household across that six-year period, but the new initiative announced by the ministry will look at potential for further reduction through a number of strategies.

Selina Juul, founder of NGO Stop Wasting Food (Stop Spild Af Mad), is one of a number of Danish and international experts to have been consulted by the ministry over the new thinktank. Nowadays, there’s a huge interest, and it will be interesting to gather all the initiatives and all the good stakeholders, say the experts. In fact, the Danish authorities on the concept of a thinktank focused on the issue since 2011, before presenting the idea to Ellemann-Jensen’s predecessor in 2016.

Undoubtedly, it is a jolly good idea, which now is officially launched.