Advancing Food Waste Reduction: from Awareness to Research and Action

Excellencies, distinguished delegate, ladies and gentlemen, I'm delighted to welcome you to this side event on the occasion of the International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste, entitled Advancing Food Waste Reduction from Awareness to Research and Action. This event is co-sponsored by the Permanent Missions of Italy, Dominican Republic, and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan to the United Nations in New York, as well as the organization I represent, which is the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. My name is Angelica Jacome. I'm the director of the Liaison Office of FAO here in New York, and it is a pleasure to moderate this very exciting session. We have a full program with diplomats, academics, and practitioners who will share insights and solutions to address food waste. Therefore, without further ado, we will dive into the program, starting with the opening remarks segment. And here it is my honor to give the floor to His Excellency Giorgio Marapodi, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Italy to the United Nations in New York. Ambassador, you have the floor.

Well, thank you. Thank you, Angelica. This is the second day in a row that we are doing something together. It's a way of showing the strong partnership between Italy and FAO. an organization together with IFAD and WFP that we are very proud as a country to host, to have hosted in Italy for 70 years.

80, well, Italy is less than 80, but we're 81, so.

80 years, 70 something, yes. So, it's Excellency, distinguished colleagues, ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon, welcome to everybody, let me begin by thanking Well, Angelica, I did it already, but also Ambassador Ben Cosme Castanos of the Dominican Republic. Washington, thank you for being with us today. And also the permanent mission of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan for co-sponsoring this event with us. Bringing together the Caribbean, Middle East, the Mediterranean, and the UN system says something important. Food waste is a challenge that belongs to all of us in every region, at every level of development. I am particularly proud that this cross-regional gathering will be opened with a keynote by Professor Andrea Segre, who for many years has been a pioneer and tireless champion of efforts to counter food loss and waste in Italy and around the world. And I'm proud also to say that I've I was happy to work with him in Rome already when we were preparing the first pre-food system summit in 2021. We meet today shortly after the International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste, established by the G.A. to remind us of a simple paradox. Every year, a significant share of the food produced in the world is lost or wasted, while hundreds of millions of people still don't have sufficient access to food. Food that is thrown away also means wasted water, land, energy, labor, and a considerable share of global greenhouse gas emissions. On this basis, countering food loss and waste is not only an important matter of food security, but an overarching challenge of sustainable development. With the 2030 deadline for SDG target 12.3 now close, the question before us is no longer whether food waste matters, but how we can reduce it faster and more effectively. Today's event offers a particular approach to that question. We need to understand the behaviors Technology and policy are indispensable, but much of the food we waste is wasted at home, in our kitchens, through everyday decisions. How often we shop, how we plan our meals, how we read the label, how we judge whether food is still good to eat. These choices are shaped by habits, perception, and circumstances that vary from one country, one community, and one household to another. If we want our policies to work, we need to start from the reality. That is what our esteemed speakers have tried to do, starting from Italy and expanding it to the Mediterranean and beyond. Over the past years, initiatives such as the Spreco Zero campaign Zero Waste campaign and the Waste Watcher International Observatory on Food and Sustainability have helped bring food waste into public debate and scientific research, at the same time raising awareness while collecting solid behavioral data. I am also very pleased that everyone today will be able to hear from experts and institutions from FAO to CIAM, to the University of Bologna, to the Government of Jordan, who are working to turn this knowledge into concrete action. Because this is the real challenge, moving from awareness to research, and from research to action. The Spreco Zero Mediterranean initiative, zero waste, is a good example of how a shared regional approach can foster innovation and exchange of good practices. Italy remains, and I conclude, firmly committed to this agenda, including through our close partnership with the Rome-based agencies and our broader engagement on sustainable food system. We believe that reducing food loss and waste is one of the most practical and effective ways to advance food security, climate action, and responsible consumption together. I look forward to the rich and open discussion that we are going to have, and I thank you all for being here with us. Thank you. Thank you, Angelique.

And see for reminding us how food waste is very important to address issues such as food security, but beyond that, other development outcomes and stressing really this opportunity to gather a diverse group of stakeholders on the issue of tackling food waste and how we have to go from understanding behaviors and translate this into collective action. So this is a little bit about what our program is about. And we also thank you for the commitment to food security. It is now my pleasure to invite His Excellency Wellington Dario Ben Cosme Castanos, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of the Dominican Republic to the United Nations in New York. Ambassador, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Angelica. It's great to be here, distinguished colleagues. It is an honor for the Dominican Republic to co-sponsor this important event along with Italy, good friend Giorgio Jordan, and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations on this occasion, which marks the International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste. The theme that brings us together today, moving from awareness to research and action, speaks directly to the important challenges facing our agri-food systems. Food loss and waste is shaped not only by how we produce and distribute food, but also by how we plan, consume, and value it. As today's discussions recognizes, effective solutions therefore require us to better understand behaviors, and local realities, and to translate that knowledge into policies and interventions that can deliver measurable results. In the case of the Dominican Republic, this discussion comes at an important moment. Our country has recently achieved a historic development milestone by bringing the prevalence of undernourishment below the 2.5% threshold used by FAO. This progress reinforces our conviction that food security must be approached comprehensively. Increasing production remains essential, but so does ensuring that the food already produced is preserved, efficiently distributed, and ultimately consumed. Reducing food loss and waste is therefore much more than an agricultural objective. It contributes to food security and nutrition, protects public and private investment, supports rural livelihoods, and reduces unnecessary pressure on water, land, energy, and biodiversity. It is simultaneously an economic, social, and environmental priority. Technology and research can play a transformative role in this effort. In the case of the Dominican Republic, this work also builds on sustained institutional cooperation. A national committee for the prevention and reduction of food loss and waste was established in 2015, and an action plan was validated in 2017 to promote coordinated response across the food chain. Through the FAO food loss app, FAO is supporting work in the Dominican Republic rice value chains to generate more precise information on losses and their causes. For a crop central to the Dominican Republic diet and the livelihoods of agricultural producers, better information can help guide targeted interventions and more efficient practices. At the point of consumption, our school feeding program offers another valuable example A 2024 study covering 36 schools in five educational regions found that approximately 33% of food intended for school lunches was wasted. That's 33%. The findings pointed to challenges involving meal planning, portion, staff training, and students' acceptance of certain dishes. In response, FAL, once again, supported the development of OptiWaste, a tool that helps school communities weigh and record food received and left uneaten, identify patterns, and improve daily decisions. INABIE leads the operational coordination in schools, with FAO providing technical assistance and training and follow-up. These efforts are implemented by INABIE's gastronomic laboratory, designed to standardize recipes and strengthen training, and by initiative to recover edible food and put surplus produce to better use. Together, they illustrate an important principle. Awareness identifies the challenge, but evidence, education, and practice partnerships allow us to act upon it. Dear friends, this is also why international cooperation is indispensable. We need stronger, more comparable national data, tools that help us understand not only how much food is lost and waste, but why, and opportunities to adapt and scale solutions that work. Cooperation among governments, producers, businesses, civil society, and international organizations can help translate research into policy and accelerate progress towards sustainable development goals, target 12.3. The Dominican Republic once again remains committed to building partnerships to advance agri-food systems that are more efficient, sustainable, and resilient. Reducing food loss and waste is fundamental to the transformation and to ensuring that the resources we invest in producing food ultimately fulfill their most important purpose, which is to nourish our people. As my colleague mentioned, I definitely look forward to very productive discussions today, and I thank you for the opportunity.

And first of all, allow me to congratulate the Dominican Republic for achieving the getting off the the hunger map and also for sharing with us how you know addressing food security requires a real holistic approach and food loss and waste addressing food loss and waste is a key action to achieve multiple SDGs. You also shared with us a little bit going into that country experience and about the importance of collaboration and how Dominican Republic is collaborating together with FAO with the food loss app or the FLAP as we call it more colloquially on the rice value chain and also school feeding program and how after studies observing how much food was wasted, how you brought in this collaboration between FAO and the INAB in order to address this. And I really liked how you encapsulated it about how the importance of evidence, education and practice, which allows us to act. So thank you very much. Continuing with our rich program, we will now turn to our keynote speaker, Professor Andrea Segre from the University of Bologna. He's the scientific director of Waste Watcher International Observatory on Food and Sustainability. Professor Segre, over to you.

Thank you very much, excellencies, distinguished colleagues, it's really a great honor to be here and share with you an experience we've been doing over the past, uh, some 25 years actually. And, uh, I'll try to frame in, uh, some 10 minutes, I think, um, this, path that took us here in presenting later on with my colleague, Matteo Vittuari, a project that use the tools we've been working on over this period. We start, I'll start this short presentation from the last observation day. that we celebrate in Rome with our group presenting the cross-country report of our observatory and we had the keynote by Maximo Torero and concluding remark by Maurizio Martina and in which they sign our path today. They need on one side to measure food waste and food losses of Uh, but measure is not enough, and then to, uh, act to have a concrete action to find solution through a dialogue, so, uh, the picture is what we've been actually… just listening is as follows. You see, we have food loss and waste is actually one challenge, but two points of or more points of intervention. You see the breakdown of losses and waste. And as Ambassador Marapodi pointed already out, the majority, the 60% of the waste happen in households. So, uh, in our, and, and this is, uh, uh, actually an issue that I will take in my presentation, focusing exactly on this part of the chain, while on one side was already pointed out, uh, out 8% to 10% of, uh, global greenhouses gas emission are linked to… food waste and still is, of course, more than the, the, the objective actually is a target 12.3 that call everyone to have within 2030, uh, food, per capita food, uh, waste. We need, we have just four years to, to reach this, uh, target, but we need measures And I keep short, I'll go back when we started this story with a project called Last Minute Market, end of the '90s, the world was totally different and also food waste was not really considered as an issue. And then after 10 years of work, exciting, I'll tell you my experience to recover food surpluses to benefit charities, poor people, people in need through donation. So an act very strong. We realized the study that was published by the Royal Society of Chemistry in Cambridge, transforming food waste into research, where we sort of defined this food chain and we decided to work on the food waste because in our household this recovery to benefit charities is impossible. So the word that we decided to adopt is prevention. We need to work to prevent food waste. The best waste is the waste we not perform. We don't do. And we go very fast. From 2010, we start with some activities based on sound research to disseminate and to implement a new behavior, especially in the part of households, consumers, to prevent food waste very quickly. And a word, We say, because the English translation means something else, zero waste, so I'll, I'll keep it in Italian, an award. to all the community institutions, schools, to award the best practices in prevention. Then we set up an observatory just before 2015 in order to measure whether we advance or not to the 2030 target. Then we ask our institution to establish a national day, the 5th of February, called National Day prevention of food waste and then the last tool is this application, Sprecometer, waste meter, to involve people, not only institutions. Our approach is basically on, in this case, behavioral economics, is motivation, ability, opportunity, social nudges, experiments, try to follow this path, measure, understand, transform, and reframe. So why is important? And I will give you some results, this mapping, because you understand, as you already pointed out, quantity, profile, drivers, levers, and you have a logical framework in which you can, as institution, act. So really, we enter in in the behavior of families, of ourself, sometime in the garbage. And we try to understand why we waste, because it's not really, I mean, if we give value to food, we need the food to be nourished. It doesn't make much sense to throw away. We will see, and we saw some figures very important. So measure. just really a snapshot of the Italian situation from agricultural field to fork, as we say. So, is, uh, is, is very much different with respect, if you take tons, quantity and value, look the shares, uh, if you take, uh, value, we are more or less in line with, uh, the UN, uh, percentage is a little bit less, 55%, but if you take tons, look at the, uh, agricultural se- sector, how much count in terms of, uh, losses. in this case, just to have a figure, if you consider that one meal is 500 grams, depends very much what you have inside, this would mean 10 billion meals in a year. This is the Italian figure. Then with WasteWatcher, with the same methodology, is a sample, is a survey of self-perception, in a sample of Italian families, 2000 interviews, we can, so to say, compare the different situation. This is not, we don't want to have a ranking, see, of we have the top waste, absolutely not. We need to compare and see the reasons and see whether public policies work elsewhere. And you see some differences. Last survey, this cross-country report we presented last week in Rome, compare Italy versus United States. Again, no comparison in terms of ranking, just we see the difference. So we have our measure is the grams per capita in a week, the same week we make this survey each year. By the way, two times because we have a different consumption comparing winter to summer. And you see a different, for example, both countries decrease over the years, which is a very good sign, but we have, in this case, we top the five food items, you see really a different basket, that means different habits, different diets and different motivation. I'll show you just this figure that compare generations. I am happy because I am on the side of boomers, somebody else here is in the side of Gen. Z. You see the polarization of the societies of our countries and the By the way, it's more, more important this difference in the US with respect to Italy, while we enter into details and we understand that Gen. Z has a problem of food education, but they use, uh, uh, artificial intelligence, uh, like, uh… a lot, I would say, without having really this, I would say, food intelligence, so a food education. And then this is surprised me in a way that we also had a breakdown in terms of origin of families. And I was surprised that Italian origin families, with respect to the average, waste more, 38%. But this is not not really negative because the survey is at the household level. This means that they eat probably more at home, which is not really negative, but perhaps also they lose tradition and the like. Very quickly to action because my aim, our aim was to show you results. Okay, surveys, international observatory, but we need to involve people And then we had this application, I just said we need an application called Waste Kneater, but I didn't know how to make such a tool. And this is a sort of personal trainer on on avoiding, preventing food waste because you, in this application, basically is the same scientific approach of WasteWatcher, self-perception, you can monitor your behavior and in case you would waste, I don't know, for example, 100 gram of cheese in your refrigerator, you have the economic loss, carbon, the environmental impact, carbon footprint, water, and ecological footprint. And then a number of contents scientifically tested, how to use the fridge, how to list your shop, how to read the labeling, expiring date, and the like. This worked very well. A second action is related to something that I was struck when we first, five years ago, had this results, low income class waste more, 25% with respect more than the average. I was shocked at the beginning because as an economist, I thought less income, you buy less food, you waste less. It's not true because you decrease the quality of your purchases, especially fruit and vegetables, so more quantity of leftovers and also and this is more important, if you eat, and this is basically junk food, I don't know how to define this part, then you have an impact on your health, and this is called metabolic waste. So, we made the tool too, and we published also a book to prevent and promote food education also for people that is in need and they get assistance on food. Last but not least, and I'll go to the conclusion, which is where do we need to go? And we realized that the best, I mean, solution, so to say, is okay, redistribution, okay, prevention, but you need to frame food waste within the right to food. And, I mean, everyone knows the right to food, especially here, but if you take figures, statistics, you realize that we are very far. But if we include this right in local community, and this is the third example I take, perhaps in a local food policy may work. And within, over the past three years, we realize we realize we include the right to food in the chart of a municipality, actually not only the municipality of Bologna, but the metropolitan city, which is in our context quite large, 1 million people. And having this right to food written by, of course, is very close to the one we know from as a human, uh, right, uh, the institution, uh, the major, they apply a local food policy that started with this common, uh, right, recognized and written in the charter, starting with a number of measures that are ongoing. So this is more or less the frame I wanted to give you. So awareness, evidence, action, and rise. But later on, Matteo Vittuari of our group will give you a perspective of the project that we will present later. Thank you very much.

You very much, Professor Segre, for sharing with us these 25 years of, let's say, research and work in preventing food waste in households, a visionary work, I would say. You shared with us how you're using these research and findings to understand behavior, to raise awareness and behavioral change. And speaking of that action part, developing tools to monitor food waste and ultimately aimed at realizing the right to food, particularly in local context, which is going one bit at a time. And through this, you've been putting it into the charters of some of the cities, including Bologna. So thank you very much for your keynote speech. So to reflect a bit on the preceding interventions and provide additional perspectives, we have an exciting roundtable discussion moving from awareness to action, reducing food waste across context with interventions from Siham, the Higher Council of Food Security, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, the University of Bologna and FAO. First of all, our first panelist, I would like to introduce Ms. Luciana Delgado, technical advisor for food loss and waste at FAO. And she will share with us the importance of measurements, digital tools and context specific interventions to turn awareness into action to transform agri-food systems. Luciana, over to you.

So good afternoon, distinguished colleagues. Thank you for the invitation. So food loss and waste represent a major challenge for the sustainability, efficiency, and resilience of our agri-food systems. So food is lost and wasted across the entire food supply chain, from production and harvesting through post-harvest handling, storage, processing, and distribution to retail, food service, and consumption. And when food is lost or wasted, we also lost the land, water, energy, labor, and financial resources invested in producing that food. But recognizing the scale of the problem is only the starting point. The real challenge is to move from awareness to action. This requires moving beyond aggregate estimates and understanding where losses and waste occur, what drives them, and which interventions can effectively prevent them. This is why measurement is fundamental. Without reliable information, it is difficult to identify priorities, design targeted interventions, allocate resources effectively, or assess whether interventions are delivering results. At the same time, there is no single solution for food loss and waste. The causes vary considerably across contexts and along the agri-food system. At production and post-harvest stages, losses may be associated with harvesting practices, inadequate storage, pest, quality deterioration, transport or infrastructure constraints. And further along the chain, they may be related to processing market requirements, forecasting, packaging or supply and demand management. And at the consumer and food service level, as was mentioned, waste can be driven by portion sizes, menu planning, food acceptability, purchasing practices and behavior. This is why FAO is working to make measurement more accessible and actual through partnerships and digital innovations. So for example, as mentioned, we have the Food Loss App, the FLAP, that supports producers in measuring and understanding food losses across production and post-harvest stages. And at the other end of the agri-food system, we have the OptiWaste app that supports organizations in measuring, monitoring, and analyzing food waste in food services and institutional settings. Although they address different stages, both tools are based on the same principle. We need to measure and understand the problem in order to act effectively. A practical example, as mentioned by the ambassador from the Dominican Republic, where FAO is working with the National Institute of Student Welfare in Avila, within the school feeding program. This program reached more than 2 million students. And a study conducted across the 36 schools found that approximately one third of the food intended for school meals was wasted. So this figure tells us that there is a significant challenge. But the more important question is, where is this waste occurring? Why this is occurring and what can be changed? So OptiWaste helps address these questions by recording waste at different stages of the food service process. For example, it can help distinguish waste generated during preparation from food that remains unconsumed. This information can support decisions on portion size, meal acceptability, preparation practices, purchasing and planning. And in this way, measurement becomes a mechanism for identifying and targeting interventions. But technology alone is not the solution. Reducing food loss and waste requires a combination of evidence, technical capacity, appropriate policies, investment, behavioral change, and collaboration among the different actors across the food systems. Ultimately, we need to establish a continuous cycle. We need to measure, understand, act, monitor, and adapt. Measurement tell us where we are, analysis help us understand why, and interventions allow us to act, and monitoring tell us whether we are actually making progress. So if we are serious about accelerating progress towards the SDG 12.3, our objective should therefore go beyond increasing awareness. We need to strengthen our capacity to measure food loss and waste, understand its causes, prevent it where it possible, and demonstrate measurable reductions over the time. Because ultimately, success is not measured by how much we know about food loss and waste. It is measured by how effectively we prevent food from being lost and wasted in the first place. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Luciana, for sharing with us some of FAO's work and in particular, sharing this point about the key role of measurement in the ability to understand the challenge, identify the challenge, design, analyze, evaluate, monitor interventions and adapt them accordingly. You shared, which was also shared by the Ambassador of Dominican Republic, two important tools that we have to make this measurement accessible. These are the Food Loss App, the FLAP, and the OptiWaste tools, which have been used in in a different context. And one context we learned about today was the Dominican Republic in particular. We will now listen to a video message from Mr. Biagio Di Terlizzi, director of the International Center for Advanced Mediterranean Agronomic Studies, CIHEM, on their work on food loss, particularly their efforts to identify local solutions by connecting knowledge with decision making and support to farmers.

Distinguished institutional representative and colleague, I'm very happy to attend the International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste. We are pleased to be present as a representative of CIAM body. We are devoted to training, but associating also the search and the cooperation. The topic of waste and losses for our activity is more related to losses. We are present in 42 countries. We are dealing with a different value chain, but also taking consideration that the topic of losses is something that is touching people, touching the family. and Middle East, 15% of food produced is lost between the post-harvest to retail. And in Africa, it's something higher, more than 23%, because there is difficulties in storing, refrigerating, processing. We have to imagine how difficult it has been to produce, how many difficulties has to overcome by the farmers, how the climate change is making it more hard to have a production in that area, then they are almost obliged to import it, which means additional cost because some production are lost in the country. Our activity is to see how locally we can find some solution because the potentiality exists. They need to be assisted with the local community, with the local scientists, we could reduce losses. We need to identify where our losses are generated, but then associating knowledge. And when to the knowledge are also associated the public decision makers and let also farmers to be aggregated and assisted. This is the way how the chain can grow without losses. Some things practical I would like to report, which is from Puglia, and the farmers who are not able to bring to the market during Sunday their production. The idea has been to build up community laboratory in order that the farmer can bring, and the community will package, process, and the farmers can go in later to take it and then to place to the market. This is a way how to let farmer to continue to be farmer. The farmer market in the different country where has been organized by the institute is very critical in certain area, like the one that we did in Alexandria. The farmers were organized themselves in the different edition of the market to bring to the market the amount that the consumer can buy from them. The importance to organize a system of production is it important to transfer knowledge. There is activity that should be continued, supported, and the international network like Waste Watcher and Food is Never Waste Coalition are doing, and this is what we should continue doing. The challenge the connection between the farmers of producer and also public authority. This is strategic because our role should be in sustaining people in order that they can continue working in rural area. Thank you very much.

Included how we need to put ourselves in in farmers shoes and and focus on the decisions they make here again this aspect of of the local the local focus has been brought in and I would be chance. She is bringing in the knowledge. I'm trying to engage the community across value chains and also connected with these local authorities. It is now my pleasure to turn to Ms. Nada Al-Firat, Secretary of the Higher Council for Food Security, Director of Food Security Unit from the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, who will delve into the national approach to reducing food loss and waste from measurement and behavioral change to innovation and institutionalization, linking food waste reduction with food security, water security, economic efficiency, and resilience. Ms. Al-Firat.

Thank you, Madame Excellencies, dear colleagues, first of all, I would like to thank Italy and FAO for bringing us together today. The theme, "From Awareness to Action," reflects Jordan's own journey. For Jordan, food loss and waste are not only environmental issues. We are one of the most water-scarce countries in the world, and we depend heavily on food imports. When we waste food, we also waste water, energy, and money. For us, reducing food loss and waste is food security policy, water policy, and economic policy all at once. Under the leadership of His Majesty King Abdullah II, food security is a national priority. Jordan has established the Higher Council for Food Security, chaired by the Prime Minister, to bring national efforts together. Our journey gained a new strength in '22 with the No to Food Waste initiative. Since then, we have focused on four areas, evidence, behavior, new innovations and institutions. First, evidence. We began with a simple question, how can we reduce food waste if we don't know how much we waste? The Higher Council for Food Security with the Department of Statistics and WFP carried out Jordan's first official national food waste study. Young Jordanians have collected data from homes, restaurants, hotels, and hospitals. The results show that household food waste reached about 81.3 kilograms per person per year, nearly 1 million tons every year. These figures are not an achievement. They are a starting point and a call to action. Our national study also suggests that food waste and food insecurity can exist in the same household, but numbers tell us how much we waste. how much we waste, they do not always tell us why. Second, behavior. In Jordan, food is a part of our culture of family, hospitality, and generosity. We don't need to change this culture. We need to show what responsible generosity looks like. With support from France and WFP, Jordan learns Jordan launched a national campaign called "Appreciate it, don't waste it." Its message is simple. Buy what you need, store food correctly, and make good use of what remains. We need global evidence, but local solutions. Third, innovation. Preventing waste must always come first. But when food waste cannot be avoided, we should put it to good use. In Jordan, young innovators use the black soldier fly to turn food waste into animal feed and organic fertilizer. This work received His Majesty King Abdullah II's Silver Jubilee Award. It shows how a local idea can become a practical solution. Fourth, institutions. Campaigns end, projects end, funding ends, but strong institutions must remain. Under the Higher Council for Food Security, a committee for food loss and waste was set up to help institutions work together. Jordan has also brought local groups together through establishing a national union for food loss and waste management. This is how we move from separate projects to national systems. Dear colleagues, based on Jordan's experience, we would like to offer three proposals. First, measure regularly, not once. Countries need national baselines and regular reports linked to SDG 12.3. What we measure once creates awareness. What we measure regularly keeps us on track. Second, connect food waste with food security and nutrition. These are different issues and each needs its own measure, but we should study the links between food waste, what families eat, and food insecurity. We invite research partners, FAO and UNEP, to help countries study this data together while keeping each measure clearly separate. Jordan is ready actually to support this work. Third, scale what works. The world has many pilot projects. Now we must help the best solutions grow. Before we expand a solution, we should ask: Does it reduce waste? Is it safe? Does it make economic sense? can it work on larger scale? Colleagues, for decades, we have asked, how can we produce more food? Today, we must also ask, how can we make better use of the food we already have? In our culture, food is a blessing, and what we value, we should not waste. Jordan is ready to share its experience, learn from others, and work with our partners. Our national target is to reduce food loss and waste by 30 percent By 2030, our success should be measured not by the number of studies or campaigns, but by the food we save, the resources we protect, and the strength we build. This is Jordan's journey, from awareness to action, and from action to lasting results. Thank you. Thank you very much.

For really emphasizing a bit this through line throughout all the interventions that we've seen about having evidence, understanding behavior, using innovations, and the role of institutions. You pointed out to the fact that food waste and food security can exist in the same household, and this is a little bit what Professor Segade was alluding to also with the low income, how they waste more than in generally high income homes. You brought in something very interesting, which is the cultural aspect, this issue of generosity and how do we manage it in the context of food waste. And you came up with three very concrete recommendations, which is having national baselines that are aligned to the SDGs, in particular the 12.3 indicator, connecting food waste with food security and nutrition with further studies, and scaling up what works. If we find actions that work, we need to take them to scale in order to make change. So thank you very much for your intervention. And last but not least on the panel, I wish to invite Professor Matteo Vituari from the University of Bologna, who will inform us on the FOOT project, which is supported by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation. And the university here collaborates with multiple partners in six countries to identify practices to replicate and scale up nationally and regionally, a little bit taking on the last recommendation from Dr. Alia Alfidar. Over to you, Professor Rotari.

Thank you for the organization of this interesting event. So food loss and waste are at a crossroad. And as anticipated from colleagues over the past years, researchers, international organizations, governments, and public and private actors have invested a number of efforts in defining food loss and waste, understanding their determinants, and developing methods to measure them. But this is not enough anymore. We need to make a step further. We need to understand which actions can actually generate change and why they are generating change. And in this sense, we need to measure in a concrete way what type of change these actions are allowing to implement. And we also need to understand under which conditions these actions works, whether they effects can be sustained over time, and whether successful solutions can be replicated and scaled across different contexts. As in many other areas, there is not a one solution fits all. The Waste Watcher International Observatory and many of the initiatives that we have conducted and we are conducting in Bologna in these years are increasing moving in this direction. We have defined, we have understood, we have measured. Now it is time to act and to implement these solutions, measure their impacts, understand their capacity to drive a broader transformation of our food system. The food project, which is supported by the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs, and it is conducted together with FAO, with the CM Bari and with the University of Bologna, is moving along these lines. We are working in Albania, Egypt, and Tunisia together with the in Azerbaijan, Jordan, and Kenya together with the and the. The project food builds also on a number of successful experience that we have developed across these years. One is the living lab that is being developed between the University of Bologna and the Emilia-Romagna region. A very important element in this project is that the project brings together stakeholders to co-design interventions supported by trainings, awareness campaigns, behavioral interventions, and before and after measurement to finalize with the production of guidelines. So the ambition that we have is to adapt and replicate this model across different countries, cultures, and food environments. So another key point is that food transformation is not simply about identifying proper solutions. It is about engaging people in shaping these solutions and creating the conditions for change to be adopted, sustained, and scaled up. So I would like to say that our approach combines six key elements. First is bringing together stakeholders. because academia alone cannot drive change. Second is defining the food environment in which we want to intervene. And as food environment, I intend a situation where individuals are making choices related to food. Third is understanding the actors, practices, and the factors that are influencing food-related decisions. Fourth is measuring. Fifth is co-designing interventions with local stakeholders. taking into account their needs and capacities, and finally, assessing their impact, understanding whether these conditions are actually allowing the reduction of the loss and waste, whether these effects can last, and whether successful solutions can be replicated and scaled up. None of these elements is extremely innovative when they are considered individually. What matters is to bring them together in a coherent process that moves from understanding the problem to generating and measuring change. So we are applying this approach in very different contexts. In Tunisia, we work in university canteens. In Albania, we work in school canteens. In Egypt, in all-inclusive resorts. In Azerbaijan, we will work in universities and school canteens. And The aim is to use behavioral interventions to understand how to drive change in canteens towards better choices. For example, reducing food waste while increasing the consumption of vegetables. And this is important because it is a double benefit, which is clearly connecting food waste and nutrition, food waste and food security. In Jordan, we will work along the poultry su- supply chain, in Kenya, along the tomato su- uh, supply chain. So different countries, different actors, and different food cultures, but one common, uh, uh, ambition, which is the development of, uh, uh, successful in- uh, uh, interventions. And the, the generation of evidence on what works under which conditions and how effective solutions can be replicated and scaled at national and regional levels.

Thank you very much, Professor Bittwari, for inviting us to move beyond definition and numbers and to evaluate actions that generate change, why, under what conditions, and are they replicable in other areas? And this is where you bring in the FOOT project, which builds on vast experience and with an ultimate goal of providing some sort of guidelines for replication, understanding that there's different contexts, different actors, different value chains that will do that, but you're bringing everybody under one roof. So, now before we're, you know, at the end of our panel, so, and about to conclude the event, but before doing so, I would like to give the floor once again to Professor Vituari to introduce the winner of Spereco Zero Mediterranean Initiative, I won't say Zero Waste Mediterranean Initiative, as we were corrected by Professor Segre, it doesn't mean the same thing, so over to you, Professor Vituari.

Yeah, thank you. Thank you once again. So as part of this idea of scaling, we wanted not only to scale the projects that we are running together, but we wanted also to give voice, to provide voice also to other actors engaged in the fight against food loss and waste. And within the framework of the, uh, uh, Sprawl Zero, award that is organized at the Italian level, we decided to extend this initiative at the Mediterranean level with the Mediterranean award for best practices in loss and waste prevention and reduction, looking for best practices aimed to identify, recognize, and promote initiatives contributing to food loss and waste reduction and to food system sustainability. So in 2026, we launched the first edition. A second round will follow in spring 2027 with the ambition of broadening the participation and increasing impact and awareness again. So this year, the winning project is ArdiFire, satellite artificial intelligence for agricultural fire prevention and loss reduction. So instead of presenting the project, I would leave ideally the project manager presenting the project itself.

Imagine a field of wheat ready for harvest, months of work, enough to feed many families. Now imagine it lost to a fire in a single afternoon. My name is Mohamed Essin Chabane, co-founder of Arthipilot from Tunisia. For more than 10 years, our team has studied Tunisian farmland using satellite data. Today, we turn that research into tools that help farmers protect what they grow. ArdiFire is the project you are recognizing today. It uses open satellite imagery and artificial intelligence to do three things. First, predict. It shows which fields are most at risk so farmers can act early. Second, alert. It monitors those fields and warns farmers up to seven days ahead. Third, prove, if a fire indeed happens, it gives clear, dated evidence of what was lost, so farmers are compensated faster. Prevent the loss, and when we can't, shorten the recovery. Why does this matter for food waste? Because much of our food is lost in the field, long before it reaches the kitchen or the shop. Every field we protect is a harvest that stays in the food system. and farmers who recover quickly plant again instead of losing a second season. Fewer fires also mean healthier soils, cleaner air and more secure rural livelihoods. Today, ArdiFire is a working prototype. We are starting in Tunisia, but fire does not stop at borders. Thank you to the Food Project, CMB, the University of Bologna and the SPELCO Zero team for this recognition, because food is never waste, especially the food we can still save in the field. Thank you.

Thank you very much. They say a picture is worth a thousand words. I think a video is probably worth about a million. So this is very, very This has been a very great session. We've had different experiences, different points of view, bringing in all these different aspects about importance of measurements and monitoring, adapting, designing, and really seeing what works and how do we take that to scale. And something that was mentioned a little bit on, but is a very important, is the investment that is gonna be needed for all of this. So I wish to once again thank you all. I would to thank the co-sponsors, our speakers, the technicians for this fascinating session where we really were able to focus on how we can advance food waste reduction from awareness to research to action. This should be one of many conversations and I'm glad that we had the starting point today here in the context of the New York UN Headquarters. Thank you

Can I just say, can I say just one word? I wish to thank you, to acknowledge the presence of the Permanent Representative of Moldova, my very old friend, Gheorghe Leuca. Gheorghe, thank you very much for being with us today.