In the “Strength from education and information guidance” spearhead, solutions focus on increasing knowledge and making a socio-cultural change. The goal of the solutions is to make a broad cultural change in the reduction of food waste in society at large by changing people’s attitudes and increasing knowledge.

The solutions are divided into the measures below. They will be supplemented as the work progresses. In particular, the measures address the development of education and social standards. Education plays an important part in the future behaviour of households. Food waste issues should be included comprehensively in curricula starting from early education to different subjects. Social pressure and acceptance encourage people to reduce food waste. For example, red-labelled products have quickly become widely acceptable and even reachable among different income groups as a result of food waste dialogue, shops’ initiatives and active communication. Class 2 vegetables (such as tomato and cucumber) have received a positive acceptance, and there is demand for them. In restaurants, “take what you eat” has become a more common practice. Information-based guidance alone is rarely enough to change people’s behaviour but, combined with other measures, it has been found to be effective. In other words, information-based guidance also plays a key role in reducing food waste.

 

MEASURES  OPERATORS AND IMPLEMENTATION
Education 

  • National curriculum
  • Strengthening measures to reduce food waste in various subjects from daycare to primary and secondary school.
    • Producing high-quality materials and training packages for different levels of education (especially focusing on the promotion of everyday skills)
  • Vocational education
    • Preparing students to take food waste into account as part of sustainable working methods

 

 

 

  

  • Professional kitchens
  • Food sector companies
  • Union of home economics teachers
    • Sustainable home economics – continuing education 2020–2021
  • Municipal network
  • Rural Women’s Advisory Organisation
    • “Älä ruoki hukkaa” (Do not feed food waste) project (2021–2022)
  • Motiva
  • The Finnish National Agency for Education (EDUFI)
  • Cooperation with different educational institutions
Social norms

  • New socially acceptable norms are needed, supported by their spread and related dialogue (education, media influencers, etc.)
  • Study of the opportunities and utilisation of social standards.
  • Research (testing of methods)
Information-based guidance

  • New measures to increase information
    • Information-based guidance has mainly been targeted at consumers. Focus also on other parts of the chain in the future (such as employees at different stages of the chain)
  • Operators in the sector
Material forum

Establishing a material flow forum/bank in the food chain

  • Establishing a physical and virtual interactive network-based forum
  • Information channel for the entire chain: Opening up material flows for the entire chain = updated results and background material of food waste research
  • Operators in the sector
  • A party/organisation that maintains the material forum