The National Food Chain Safety Office targeted the reduction of food waste on the international conference organized on 8-9 October, 2018. During the two days, nearly 120 participants took part in the event called LIFE FOOD WASTE platform meeting.

Several experts, researchers, market stakeholders and representatives of ongoing and terminated projects striving to mitigate the extent of food wastage had the chance to present their activities and discuss their experience, questions and all difficulties that they’ve encountered during their work.
 

 
The conference was opened by Róbert Zsigó, Minister of State for Food Chain Supervision. Karmenu Vella, Commissioner for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries shared his thoughts with the participants via a video message. The keynote speech of the event was held by Vytenis Andriukaitis, Commissioner for Health & Food Safety, in which he highlighted the importance of solving the biggest problems of the area.
 


 
The event supported the engagement between the different projects and the experts of INTERREG, LIFE and H2020 to help joint work in the future. Amongst LIFE projects, the Italian FishScale, the Portuguese FrutaFeia, the British TRiFOCAL, and the Italian NOW introduced themselves. The experts discussed four comprehensive topics during a common consultation in the afternoon: commerce, hospitality services, waste management, household food wastage.
 

 
The first day ended with a special dinner provided by the so-called “Kitcherity” initiative of the Hungarian Food Bank Association. Besides hosting the participants of the conference, they put emphasis on feeding people in need with the food remained intact and safe during the dinner. Applying good practises discussed during the conference was a good way to comprehend the message of the event. The dinner was followed by a beautiful singer production presented by Laura Marik.
 

 
Thank to the contribution of NFCSO Szupermenta project, on the second day we investigated with a preference test whether the same food products with different use by and best before dates have sensible differences. With the help of the participants, we examined if there is a difference between perfect shaped and irregular but safe to consume vegetables. We will report the results of the blind test soon.
 

 
The conference was a good progress from the aspect of preventing food waste. We hope that all the experts received answer to their questions and can motivate and inspire each other which might contribute to the reduction of food wastage globally.
 

 

Download the agenda of the conference.