Biljana Borzan, a Croatian Social Democrat member of the European Parliament, warned on Tuesday that 10% of food on the EU market is wasted, which is why citizens should be educated about the value of food and food donation facilitated.

The first official survey on food waste in the EU, conducted in 2020 and published by Eurostat, shows that 57 million tonnes of food were thrown away in the EU, including 286,000 tonnes in Croatia.

“The figures are staggering… 10% of all food on the European market is thrown away, in a situation when food prices are increasingly high due to inflation and the war in Ukraine,” said Borzan, who is the EP rapporteur responsible for reducing food waste and increasing food donation.

EU countries have undertaken to halve that amount by 2030, Borzan said, adding that this means that the amount of food thrown away in Croatia should drop to below 143,000 tonnes a year by the end of this decade.

“That is something that would be unimaginable by the generation of our grandparents. It is necessary to take systematic action to improve the situation, for example, by facilitating food donation through the establishment of a food bank, educating citizens about the value of food, and by making best before dates more understandable to citizens,” she said.

At the EU level, households generate 55% of food waste.

A total of 127 kilograms of food are thrown away per inhabitant in the EU. With 397 kilograms per inhabitant, Cypriots throw away the most food in the EU, followed by Danes, with 221 kilograms, and Greeks, with 191 kilograms.

Slovenians and Croatians throw away food the least, with 68 kilograms and 71 kilograms of food waste per inhabitant respectively.

The survey published by Eurostat will serve as an official starting point to adopt regulations aimed at reducing food waste, Borzan said.

According to a survey conducted by the Croatian Economy and Sustainable Development Ministry in 2021, Croatians throw away 53.6 kg of food per capita annually (including non-edible part of food such as egg shells, potato skins, bones, and the like), or 22 kilograms of edible food, that is, food that could have been consumed.

The most food is thrown away in the regions of Primorje and Gorski Kotar, and Dalmatia and Istria.