Estonia, Foodstuff, Legislation, Markets and Companies

According to the ministry of environment survey, residents of Estonia annually throw away food worth 63 million euros. A third of the thrown-away food is still edible, and this loss could be avoided with better planning.

At the invitation of the ministry of agriculture, social, environmental, and economy ministry representatives stated that to improve the situation, a national action plan is needed. Also there is lack of background knowledge, which is why further research is needed because currently only the food industry final consumer part has been observed.

By autumn, the ministries should have a clearer picture on how to proceed. Representatives of trade and catering enterprises have to be included, in order to find out their position on this problem.

Ministry of Agriculture Commerce Department director Taavi Kand said that the list of possible actions is fairly wide. "Let's start even from informing consumers and again repeating the food labelling rules," said Kand, adding that tax measures could also be applied against food wastage.