A study by the Technical University of Berlin (TU Berlin) and Slow Food Germany, funded by the German federal agriculture ministry, shows that household food waste can be cut significantly. The project is called DiFo 2.0.
In total, 222 German households logged the food they wasted in a digital diary before and after an awareness campaign. Avoidable waste, meaning food that could still have been eaten, fell by 27.1% per person per day, from 45.5 to 33.2 grams. Total waste fell by 16.1%.
The biggest drop was in spoiled or mouldy food. The researchers believe the habit of logging waste itself helped change behaviour; in a separate trial with 420 participants, one-off prompts made no difference.
The authors recommend focusing campaigns on avoidable waste and improving how it is measured. The topic matters for the EU target of cutting food waste per person by 30% by 2030.
