Food Waste in the European Union - The Economic Utilisation of Food Co-Products - page 25

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CHAPTER 2
Food Waste in the European
Union

LUCY NATTRASS

NNFCC, Biocentre, York Science Park, Innovation Way, York,
YO10 5DG, UK
Email: [e-mail]

3 .

2.1 Introduction
Food waste includes food discarded during production, distribution,
preparation and consumption. It comprises materials such as meat trimmings,
bones and carcasses; fruit and vegetable trimmings, cores and rinds; leftover
prepared meals, and out-of-date or spoilt ingredients. Food or parts of food
items that were, at some point before disposal, edible are generally termed
avoidable food waste, while materials that are not or have not been, under
normal circumstances, edible are termed unavoidable food waste. 1 Some food
waste is termed potentially avoidable, for example food material that some
people eat that others do not, or materials that can be eaten when prepared in
some ways but not others. The distinction between avoidable and unavoidable
food waste is important because of differences in the causes of food waste, the
potential to reduce food waste and the strategies employed to do this.
Food waste is generated at all stages of the supply chain, including in the
production of fresh produce, during product manufacture and retail, in
restaurants and other food-service operations, in the home, and by individuals
away from the home, for example at work and outdoors.
Food waste is disposed of in separate food waste collections (source-segregated
food waste), organic waste collections (mixed food and garden/green waste), as