The Dutch are throwing away food for 4.5 billion meals each year

Food waste in the Netherlands has fallen by 17% since 2015, but 2.3 billion kilos of food are still thrown away every year, according to the latest food waste monitor compiled by the agriculture ministry.

The government, the national food agency Voedingscentrum and the foundation Together Against Food Waste aim to halve the amount of food thrown away by 2030 compared with 2015. The equivalent of 4.5 billion meals are discarded each year, the monitor said.

Farm minister Femke Wiersma told MPs in a briefing that there is too little awareness of how much food is never eaten.

“We expect farmers to use nutrients efficiently, while at home and in the hospitality sector sustainably produced food is being thrown in the bin. This must and can change,” she said. In total, around one fifth of the food produced in the Netherlands is wasted.

The food industry itself accounts for about a third of all waste, though much of the excess is reused as animal feed. Wageningen University is also studying new ways to limit losses during and after harvest, the minister said.

The hospitality sector is also taking steps to cut waste, the AD reported. Some restaurants have reduced portion sizes and some kitchens now use smart bins that measure leftovers so serving sizes can be adjusted the next day.

The Voedingscentrum already offers online tools such as the Bewaarwijzer, which shows how long products can be kept.

Campaigns have also highlighted that “best before” dates are not hard cut-offs: around 60 million kilos of food are thrown away each year after the date has passed, even though products like tinned tomatoes are still safe to eat for years afterwards if stored correctly.