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COPENHAGEN, July 1 (Xinhua) -- The Danish government has launched a new subsidy scheme to distribute more than five million Danish kroner (750,000 U.S. dollars) to projects that will drastically cut food waste in the country, according to a statement released on Thursday.
Data show that the average Dane wastes more than a kilogram of food every week, and an average household throws away food worth 3,200 kroner every year.
The scheme, launched by Danish Minister for Environment and Food, Esben Lunde Larsen, aims to combat food waste from food production to consumers' homes.
"Each year, consumers and retailers alone waste enough food to fill 9,730 supermarket trolleys every day. And there's more, because food waste arises in all parts of the chain from production to businesses, to wholesalers, to supermarkets and to homes," Larsen said in the statement.
"Throwing away such valuable food is a waste of money and it is an environmental problem. Therefore, we'll be supporting projects that can minimise food waste," he added.
The ministry of environment and food has previously supported the development of teaching materials about food waste, conducted campaigns about date labeling for consumers, and supported collaboration between food producers and industrial kitchens so that vegetables that would otherwise be rejected because they are the wrong shape or size are used in cooking.
Furthermore, a new global framework aimed at combating food waste was launched during the 2016 Global Green Growth Forum held in Copenhagen in June.
The latest figures showed that Denmark's food waste has been reduced by 25 percent since 2010, a European record which is only followed by the United Kingdom's reduction of food waste with 21 percent during the years 2008 to 2013. (1 U.S. dollar=6.7 Danish kroner) Enditem
