Food Federal Council: Target to reduce food waste for 2025 missed
The Federal Council has made an initial assessment of its action plan against food waste, which was adopted around four years ago. Although progress has been made since then, the reduction target set for 2025 has not been achieved.
06.05.2026, 11:18
SDA
According to estimates by the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW), food waste in Switzerland fell by around five percent between 2017 and 2024. However, as the Federal Council announced on Wednesday, the target of a 25% reduction by 2025 set out in the action plan was not achieved by a significant margin.
According to the government, more time is needed for the measures already taken to take full effect. There is also a lack of broad impact and greater efforts are needed from households. According to the report, there have been positive developments, particularly in the retail and catering sectors in businesses that systematically measure their losses.
For the next phase of the action plan, the Federal Council is continuing to rely on voluntary, independent initiatives, it added. More stakeholders than before are to be involved in the action plan, the data basis is to be improved and households are to be made more aware of the issue. A new review of target achievement is planned for 2028.
The Federal Council adopted the 2022 action plan against food waste with the aim of halving avoidable food losses by 2030 compared to 2017. In the first phase, the focus was on voluntary, autonomous initiatives by businesses.
A "central element" of this is the cross-sector agreement between the federal government and the Swiss food industry, which, according to the Federal Council, has triggered "positive momentum": 37 companies and organizations are working together to combat food waste as part of the agreement.
