FoodWise - Connecting Grocery Purchases with Waste Generation to Reduce Food Waste

SummaryThe report from UNEP "The Food Waste Index 2021" showed that approximately 931 million tons of food were thrown away by households in 2019, equivalent to 17% of total available food.

At the same time, almost 9% of the world´s population was undernourished.FoodWise aims to investigate the dynamics between household consumption decisions in the grocery store and the resulting food waste that later occurs.

This project stands out in its endeavor to link these inflow and outflow of food at the household level, providing a completely new understanding of the causes and solutions to the food waste challenge.The teams of KTH, UiA, Ratio, Envac and SVOA first will first conduct a small-scale pilot with 50 apartments and 150 villas in Stockholm with digital measures, and then a large-scale pilot with 5000 villas with more analog measures.The project is expected to deliver two main results.

Firstly, it will generate unique knowledge about what causes food waste.

Secondly, the project will generate knowledge about whether social norms can change household purchasing behavior to create less food waste.By combining purchase and waste data at the household level, FoodWise enables a detailed analysis of the food waste problem. The results will contribute to scientific insights and practical policy measures.

By linking household purchase decisions and their food waste, FoodWise will contribute to a more sustainable future, wherefff wasted food becomes the exception, not the norm.