The initiative will provide the opportunity for businesses, researchers, authorities and the agriculture and food sectors to work together to keep wastage of food to a minimum.

“If we want to do something good for our environment and our limited resources, reduction of food waste and loss of food products is a very good place to start,” environment and food minister Jakob Ellemann-Jensen told Ritzau via a written comment.

Earlier this year, the ministry released official figures showing a reduction in food waste amounting to 14,000 tonnes between 2011 and 2017.

That corresponds to a reduction of eight percent per person per household across that six-year period, but the new initiative announced by the ministry will look at potential for further reduction through a number of strategies.

The thinktank will be able to advise, propose initiatives, gather information and try funding models and other methods for reducing wastage of food and food products.

Selina Juul, founder of NGO Stop Wasting Food (Stop Spild Af Mad), is one of a number of Danish and international experts to have been consulted by the ministry over the new thinktank.

“I’m very happy and let’s see where it will end, but this area has become so huge, I know there’s a huge interest, and it will be interesting to gather all the initiatives and all the good stakeholders,” Juul told The Local.

Juul said she had worked with authorities on the concept of a thinktank focused on the issue since 2011, before presenting the idea to Ellemann-Jensen’s predecessor Esben Lunde Larsen two years ago.

“He thought it was a jolly good idea, so he took it up and we worked together. Now it’s officially launched, we will start working on the collaboration and let’s see what the government will come up with,” she said, noting that key stakeholders in the thinktank were scheduled to meet with the ministry in September.

The Ministry of Environment and Food will present the thinktank at a meeting at which businesses, organisations and other stakeholders will be able to participate and join the work to reduce food waste, Ritzau reports.

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