“When we talk about food waste we certainly don’t only mean what is left on plates. The production chain is long and there are many players involved. They can all work to improve and to combat this phenomenon. But awareness, education and determination are needed.” Annalaura Silvestro is a researcher at the Food Sustainability Observatory of the School of Management, Politecnico Milano. Camst Group has also joined the Food Sustainability Observatory as a member of the Advisory Board.

What are the Observatory’s goals?

The Food Sustainability Observatory was launched in 2017 by the School of Management of Politecnico Milano. It has just completed its fourth edition and aims to make a concrete contribution to the sustainable transformation of the agri-food system through research, awareness-raising and information activities, which focus on the role of innovation.

How did the partnership with Camst Group come about?

Engaging in applied research, we have built up a community including companies both on the supply side – providers of services, packaging and technological solutions – and on the demand side – production, transformation, distribution and catering. Within the community, we established an Advisory Board to represent the demand-side companies. Having Camst as a Board member gives us access to inputs from one of Italy’s biggest catering organisations during our surveys. We are able to tap into their ideas on the circularity practices implemented, the innovations made, the results achieved and the barriers encountered to their introduction.

What are the main challenges facing an agri-food business?

When analysing the practices introduced to combat waste, we assess the food waste hierarchy: prevention, reuse, redistribution, reuse for animal feed, recycling, recovery and disposal. In the catering sector, one of the main obstacles to emerge is that there is still very little systematic, precise measurement of surpluses performed by suitably trained company staff. A survey revealed two other difficulties: a lack of cooperation between the various players within the production chain and, in terms of management, the fear of possible consequences of breaches of the regulations, which are viewed as too “unclear”, perhaps due to misinformation.

Which link in the production chain is most crucial for combating waste?

We performed a large survey to measure the phenomenon. In the Italian production chain as a whole, annual surpluses total millions of tonnes of food. Of these, 5.1 million tonnes per year end up as waste. 53% of this waste is generated by production chain businesses and 47% by final consumers: a very high percentage. The primary sector accounts for 64% of waste within the production chain as such. The catering stage is one of the least wasteful. In view of these figures, during the last few years we have seen companies introducing more and more recovery projects – including for charitable purposes – and a growth in social awareness and the spread of best practices. With regard to consumers, there is a need for more education, including through packaging, a useful information tool. For companies, there is still a lot of work to be done to combat the generation of surpluses upstream, in the primary stage.