Bringing together food waste experts from across Europe, the REFRESH Community of Experts (CoE) launched a series of four webinars on 'Tackling Food Waste Across the Supply Chain'. The series demonstrates how policy makers, manufacturers, retailers, distributors, municipalities and many more organisations involved in the food supply chain can effectively address food waste. This month-long webinar series, hosted from 9 April to 2 May 2019, included expert speakers from ten institutions. The webinars offered an opportunity to gain insights from case studies, ask questions of the speakers and get signposts to further information.

1. Webinar: Adding value to food waste and by-products

Opportunities and approaches for increasing the value of food waste and by-products

9 April 2019 – 2pm BST (3pm CEST)

What are the opportunities available at different parts of the supply chain to use unavoidable food waste and food side streams? What are the opportunities and barriers presented by policy? How can food streams be best assessed for increasing their value? What can we learn from existing case studies?

Speakers:

• Dr Nina Sweet OBE, Specialist Adviser, WRAP (chair)
• Karen Luyckx, Head of Research, Feedback
• Karin Östergren, Senior Researcher, RISE Agrifood and Bioscience

2. Webinar: Voluntary agreements to address food waste

A collaborative approach to reduce food waste along the whole supply chain

10 April 2019 – 2pm BST (3pm CEST)

What causes food waste in the supply chain and how can voluntary agreements address this? What is the role for voluntary agreements vs legislation? What can we learn from voluntary agreements implemented in Europe?

Speakers:

• Claire Kneller, Head of Food, WRAP Global (chair)
• David Rogers, Head of International Resource Management, WRAP Global
• Simone Piras, Agricultural and Rural Economist, James Hutton Institute
• Nora Brüggemann, Project Manager, Collaborating Centre on Sustainable Consumption and Production
• Dr Raquel Diaz-Ruiz, Researcher, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya          

3. Webinar: Tackling Consumer food waste

Drivers and interventions to tackle food waste at home

29 April 2019 – 2pm BST (3pm CEST)

What drives food waste in the home? What are the household practices that contribute to it? How can we effectively design policy interventions and evaluate impacts to prevent it? 

Speakers:

• Jenny Carr, Citizen Campaigns Project Manager, WRAP (chair)
• Erica Van Herpen, Associate Professor, Wageningen University
• Stephanie Wunder, Coordinator Food Systems at Ecologic Institute
• Tom Quested, Research Analyst, WRAP Global

4. Webinar: Measuring and managing Retail food waste

Identifying, measuring and collaborating to address food waste in the retail sector

2 May 2019 – 2pm BST (3pm CEST)

How can retailers identify food waste hotspots? What are the best approaches to measuring their food waste? What lessons can we learn from interventions made by a major retailer in Eastern Europe? How can different retail departments successfully work together?

Speakers:

• Dr Julian Parfitt, Technical Director, Anthesis Group (chair)
• Drs. Ing. Joost Snels, Senior researcher supply chain development, Wageningen Food & Biobased Research
• Tecla Castella, UK Head of Data Analytics, Anthesis Group

Getting involved after the webinars

Recordings of the webinars and presentations are available on the REFRESH CoE. Setting up a user account for the site gives the added benefit of being able to interact with the experts on the site, upload new tools and publications, and contribute to existing resources on the site.
Background

REFRESH ("Resource Efficient Food and dRink for the Entire Supply cHain") is an EU funded project acting against food waste. 26 partners from 12 European countries and China work towards the project's goal to contribute towards Sustainable Development Goal 12.3 of halving per capita food waste at the retail and consumer level and reducing food losses along production and supply chains, reducing waste management costs, and maximizing the value from unavoidable food waste and packaging materials. REFRESH runs from July 2015 until June 2019.

The Community of Experts website is a knowledge sharing platform that offers users a dedicated space to find and share information about proven solutions and innovative new approaches to reduce the volume of surplus food generated, feed hungry people, and divert food and scraps to the highest beneficial use. All visitors to the site are able to browse resources, but to comment on or upload resources. Membership of the site is required.

The webinars are being developed and coordinated by WRAP and Anthesis Group UK.

Ecologic Institute is leading REFRESH's Work Package 7 on Dissemination and is involved in Work Package 2 ("Business Engagement - Frameworks for Action"), and Work Package 3 ("Policy Framework for food waste prevention, recycling, and reuse").