Strategies

Food waste, many ideas but too many remain on paper

ViewPoint global survey conducted by DNV certification body only 44 out of 100 companies manage this challenge in a structured way

23 July 2025

3' min read

Combating food waste is one of the mantras of food & beverage companies but there is a significant gap between awareness, words and actions, reveals the global ViewPoint, survey conducted by the certification body DNV on a sample of 375 companies in the sector in Europe, the Americas and Asia.

This report shows that 85 out of 100 companies have taken concrete measures to reduce food loss and waste but only 44 out of 100 manage this challenge in a structured way. Moreover, only 24% consider it a high priority on their strategic agenda. And among those that have established key performance indicators (KPIs), it ranks third behind production efficiency (41%) and quality and safety (39%). There are many lights and many shadows in the scenario outlined by the ViewPoint survey, which shows that food loss management is not only a major problem for the sustainability of the food system but also a missed business opportunity. Despite the fact that 43% of companies recognise that more than 10% of unavoidable food losses and waste could be valorised through other uses, only 19% convert them into other food (such as petfood), while 18% use them for animal feed, 12% for composting, 7% for energy production and 5% donate them. Only 12% send them to landfill.

"According to our data, companies recognise the extent of the problem of food loss and waste, but many are still at the beginning of a journey towards the structured, systemic solutions needed to achieve significant and lasting reductions," says Barbara Frencia, ceo business assurance at DNV.

85 per cent of companies are taking action on monitoring (61 per cent), training (64 per cent) and improving production yields (55 per cent), facing many obstacles, starting with lack of awareness, storage constraints, inaccurate forecasts, limited budgets and often manual operating systems.

To do more, more precise data and more detailed information would be needed to better understand why, where and how food waste occurs and to what extent it affects the system. But obtaining them is complex as the causes are multiple and distributed along the entire supply chain: operational inefficiencies (35%), quality problems (34%) or with raw materials (33%), human error (33%), limits imposed by product shelf-life (30%), damaged packaging (24%) and overproduction (22%). Thus, responsibility for this problem often appears fragmented and, therefore, difficult to solve. Even so, half of the companies surveyed believe that a considerable amount of food loss and waste could be avoided, while 28% state that it could be avoided almost completely or significantly.

Among companies that have already taken steps in this direction, those in the early stages of the journey tend to focus more on how to increase efficiency and how to reduce financial costs, showing a strong focus on monitoring, awareness and operational aspects. On the other hand, the larger and more mature realities, which have taken more advanced steps and are further ahead in terms of strategies and actions, are mainly driven by sustainability motivations. This is why they have more often included combating food loss and waste in their sustainability commitments. But while 75 per cent of companies include waste management in their sustainability strategies, only 40 per cent report them publicly. And fewer than one in three companies are aware of the forthcoming ISO 20001 standard, designed to guide organisations in reducing food loss and waste throughout the supply chain. "There is a clear business rationale for making strong decisions against food loss and waste, as this reduces costs as well as helping to feed the planet. A structured approach, reliable data and standards based on good practices are key elements to enable companies to turn intentions into measurable impact," concludes Frencia.