The least wasted food? It's frozen food

"Food waste," says Andrea Segrè, scientific director of the International Waste Watcher Observatory, "should not be read exclusively as incorrect individual behaviour. Rather, it is an indicator of socio-cultural fragility and educational marginality, and if we want to combat it in a systemic manner, we need to strengthen food education policies, pay greater attention to information on labels, and also promote access to efficient household appliances and smart solutions for managing food in the home, so that Italian families can transform their freezers into smart and sustainable 'food reserve centres'. Our survey, in fact, clearly revealed that frozen food is a valuable ally against waste'.

"In a country like Italy," adds Giorgio Donegani, president of Iias, "where the problem of food waste has taken on worrying proportions, with double-digit growth by 2025, the consumption of frozen products can become an important element in the fight against waste. Not only because we throw away a very small percentage of these products, but because frozen foods are, by their very nature, a waste-saving solution par excellence. Food waste is a social issue that needs to be given serious thought, given that what is wasted worldwide could feed a third of the global population. Wasting not only means not being able to guarantee enough food for everyone, but also losing valuable resources used in production, such as fertile soil, water, energy, fertilisers. Frozen products help in the fight against food waste because they allow optimal utilisation of raw materials that arrive ready for use in the kitchen, maximise production yields, reduce waste throughout the supply chain, and reduce pollutant emissions into the atmosphere'.