Every year, millions of kilos of food are being thrown away. Not only in household kitchens, also in the chain from farmer to shopping basket. Food waste has great economic, ecological and social effects. With every kilo of wasted food, 1.3 litres of petrol is being wasted; one quarter of the food wasted worldwide is enough to feed the 800 million people who are starving.

How does the project help?
In CARVE, project partners share experiences and lessons learned. They offer practical guidance to other companies by developing, amongst other things, a toolbox. With this toolbox, companies can integrate measures into their business management, organisation and supply chain. In a number of pilots, experience in waste reduction in agricultural food chains is being gained. A reduction of dairy product waste is trying to be achieved for example by having the option to order desserts in smaller volumes. The question of what way packaging influences the storage behaviour of the consumer is also being researched in a pilot. The future of “returned bread” was being researched in a different pilot: can returned bread be used for the production of breakfast gingerbread cake, bread based porridge and cookies?

Project information
Project title: CARVE
Project number: AF-14318
Duration: 2015 – 2018
Public budget: € 1,339,000
Private budget: € 1,290,000
Project partners: Royal A-Ware Food Group B.V., CBL, FNLI, Iglo Foods Group Limited, Jumbo Supermarkten, Sonneveld Group B.V, Arla Food B.V., Royal FrieslandCampina, Albert Heijn, Plus Supermarkten, Alliantie Verduurzaming Voeding, Wageningen University & Research, Novidon B.V., Lamb Weston