Stop Foodwaste Day 2025

We are living in a century where  times  are changing extremely fast and where the growth of our global population is increasing much faster than in the centuries before.

With this growth come many changes and challenges, and if this growth keeps on continuing with the pace it does now, it’s time to make sure that we ourselves commit to these changes as well, to be able to keep our planet with all it’s natural resources in tact, so that our children and those to come in the following century can still enjoy all the resources and perks our beautiful planet earth has to offer us, the same way we can enjoy our planet's resources nowadays.

Today on the International "Stop Foodwaste Day", I would like to focus  on a very special and dear resource, one we cannot live without, one we need and use everyday and

one that is probably the most important part for our existence: FOOD

What does FOOD mean to us….

We need food to survive, we cannot live without food. Food brings us energy, food brings us all the life supporting ingredients we need on a daily basis, for our existence.

Food brings us happiness and joy and brings us as people together.

We also need food for our physical and psychological wellbeing and surviving.

BUT ……….

What is really happening at this moment in time, especially in our “western world”?

We are living in a liberated society where we take food for granted, we live under the assumption that we have enough food on our planet, we see food as a natural all around available resource. Many of us believe that there is always enough food in abundance and that we can draw from the full on our modern planet

WHY .......

Look around you, stand still and have a look at what is really happening in our environment, what do you see?

The shops are full, with all the foods we love, desire and need. There is the global food industry, the food retail trade, and many artisan craftsmen that produce so many of all our foods on a daily basis so that it looks like we have plenty of food and we can obtain all these foods 7 days a week and 24 hours per day around the clock.

Through this abundance of food we have slipped into a situation that makes us believe that it's the most normal and common thing in the world that food is always and everywhere available to everyone.

Seeing this overflow of available food, our appreciation for food has decreased immensely over the past decades, as it seems absolutely normal for us in our .modern-day society

Another important fact of the food availability, is the fact that food, especially in our western world, has become much more affordable then for example 50 years ago..

In our modern western society we only spend an average of 7-10 % of our ordinary income for food, which compared to the still many less developed countries around the world lies around 40-50%

The food waste though in our western world lies around 30+% were in the less developed countries this lies under 5%

All of this shows us  that  our handling and appreciation for food has led to a massive food waste increase in an unproportional way. Mainly in our western world, food waste has become so common that we don’t  realise anymore how much food we actually do waste in our daily lives.

Looking at the last few years and many global happenings such as bushfires, tornados, floodings, melting of poles and glaciers, the influences of climate change are undoubtedly everywhere around us and something that we cannot deny anymore. We  still have the chance to do something against this climate change, but we have to change right now and immediately, as quickly as possible before it's too late.  We have to do everything possible to reach  the Paris climate agreement, or even better, to outperform this agreement.

Food waste is one of the  root causes for our climate change, thats why its so important that on a day like today we focus on food waste and understand why this day was implemented.

Food Waste evolves through the  production and processing, the distribution, the preparation, and consumption of food. This means food waste is everywhere along our food chain, and many of us are part of the problem but can also help to reduce food waste and solve the problem in a better, faster and more efficient way.

Food waste starts  already with the farmers / producers of many basic ingredients, such as fruits, vegetables, pulses and grains. Due to monotype non diverse agricultural practices, influenced with many different increasing external factors such as insect plagues, severe climate changes and weather changes such as drought, flooding and fires, food waste already starts where the food products itself start.

Some parts of our general  crops are, because of these natural impacts and factors, not up to the expectations of our modern food industry and therefore have to stay with the farmers and producers. These parts of the crops are wasted, as the farmers are not able to sell them to the food industry.  Only a very small part of these wasted crops, or so called ugly vegetables, are sold to end consumers on farmers markets. The rest of these wasted crops are left on the fields and are  plowed into the soil again as fertiliser

The impeccable and faultless crops who do make their way into the processing procedures of the food industry are used for wholesale or as parts for processed industrial foods.

On their route for wholesale many of these crops make long journeys, even around the globe, and during these long journeys another part of these crops will not make it in their original impeccable way to the end consumer, so another part of these original crops get wasted during transportation.  Crops used for industrial processed foods are very often also not used to their complete capacity and also get partly wasted on their way to the consumer.

Thinking about all these factors along our food chain, the size of the original crop gets wasted for a big part already before they even end up with the final consumer or in our supermarkets.

In Switzerland we waste over 2.800.000 tons of food per year, nearly 30% of all available foods annually. In other words, the total amount of wasted food in our wealthy country, is an area equivalent to half of all the agricultural soil in Switzerland that is used to grow food which ends up being discarded at some point along the value chain.

Realising this, and calculated down, we are talking about around 330 Kg per person per year which shows us that we really do have a major problem.

First of all, the fact that we waste so much food is alarming and frustrating, but even worse if we then realise how many resources actually have been wasted in the process to grow and produce all these wasted foods, this should really make us think differently and enlighten us to start taking actions and react right now.

Knowing all this, I hope I can convince you and many of all the people who read this,

to be much more thoughtful whilst purchasing food and wasting food, although I know success is only guaranteed and possible if we fight this problem all together.

My approach for this global problem is not based on the root cause directly, but more on trying to showcase and make you understand how each single one of us can support solving this global problem.

How can you help preventing or reducing your personal daily food waste?

You can start by repurposing your leftovers you have in your fridges at home, in an exciting, creative and diverse way, by convert your personal food waste into delicious new food.

There are millions of food waste recipes available online where you also can find very many

tips, tricks, ideas and suggestions  on how easy it can be with small changes and little effort in your personal handling with food, can turn food waste into new food instead of just throwing it away.

Next to this generally known food waste problem there is another reason why we really have to start acting right now.

Seeing that 30 % of all foods in Switzerland get wasted we should also ask ourselves the following question:  what does this increasing amount of food waste mean for our environment and especially what is the impact on all the local and global resources we  misapply in an unnecessary way by producing them and then waste them.

What impact does this have on our planet, on the degradation of our soils,  on the water usage and water wastage  and on many other needed resources.

Every normal human being from elderly to young children need to understand that, “the way” and “the why” we waste food, makes absolutely no sense.

Besides this, also think about the following number, a very embarrassing fact, which is taking place whilst you read this blog, on our planet  there are still over 800 million of people that have no access to any food, dying of starvation, on a daily basis.

There is definitely something wrong in our western consummation society and we are all contributing to this “miss-behavior”  willingly or unwillingly,

Therefore I see it as everybodies duty that we should  all contribute together to solve this problem wherever possible and as soon as possible

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Many of you might think now that one single person's contribution, to reduce food waste will not have a great impact, and that the impact of one single person or family  is only a very very very small part  as a contribution to this global problem. But every bit helps, and if everybody would do his bit, we could still be able to reduce food waste.

And yes convincing our global population to reduce food waste is exactly the most challenging and difficult part of this problem. but all together we can do it.

We as consumers either buy more than we need, cook too big portions or are driven by spontaneous purchases of foods we actually don't need or plan to use.

I do understand  this very well, as it also still happens to me, but looking into this complete food road from the field to my dinner, this should make each and everyone of us start thinking much more about food waste and how we can support to reduce this unnecessary waste.

I don't want to advice  you or tell you what to do or tell you how you can support the reduction of food waste, i believe everyone  is clever enough to see the problem, and I also believe  that everyone can be part of the solution in his own way.

We only have one planet and we should start realising this now, so there is no better day then use the “Stop Foodwaste day” to start reducing and overthinking our personal behaviour., then one thing i can tell you with a 100% certainty

PFJ/30.04.2025