Today MEPs voted to halve EU food waste by 2030, from farm to fork, in a landmark vote. This is a huge victory, and we couldn’t have done it without you! But it isn’t a binding target – please call on them to take the target to the next level: ow.ly/VMWE308ixj1 Today, MEPs from the European Parliament’s Environment Committee voted for targets to cut EU food waste by 50% by 2030, and for these targets to be adopted as aims of member states. This target includes supply chain food waste from manufacturers and some farm food waste, which is a massive step forward to meaning not just consumers but businesses in the supply chain will pull their weight in reducing food waste. Many MEPs responded really positively to our campaign - this is a big victory, and we couldn’t have done it without your support! Thank you for all your emails and tweets at MEPs, and for lending your voice to help achieve this landmark victory! But there’s a lot of room for improvement, so let’s build on this momentum. The targets are not binding, which means they might not be taken as seriously by some member states, and some food losses from farms are not currently included within the target. We have heard indications that this is because some MEPs pushed back against binding targets in the negotiations leading up to the vote. One of the main justifications given is the lack of data on food waste, but we think that just shows a need to gather the data to find out how much food waste there is, and isn’t an excuse not to make targets binding! Please tweet at MEPs congratulating them for this step forward but challenging them to make the targets binding and include all farm food waste! Click here: ow.ly/VMWE308ixj1 Or email Simona Bonafe: simona.bonafe@europarl.europa.eu With this suggested email: ********** Dear Simona Bonafe, I would like to thank you for voting for amendments 10, 12, 25 and 26 today, in order to make the landmark decision to support 50% food waste reduction targets by 2030, support a food waste hierarchy and a farm-to-fork definition of food waste. I’m part of the movement of 59,000 people and 46 organisations who called for farm-to-fork food waste reduction targets, and we’d like to thank you. We particularly welcome the inclusion of supply chain food waste in the 50% reduction target. We call on you to go even further at the European Parliament plenary vote. We need more binding targets, to ensure these ambitious targets are achieved. Amendment 25 currently includes the phrase “"Member States should aim to achieve, a Union-wide food waste reduction target”. A binding target is essential to achieve ambitious change on food waste, to create a level playing field and ensure policy is put into practice. Although there is not currently good data on food waste levels in all countries, this should not hold back targets to reduce food waste. Where there is good data already, a 2014 baseline can be used for a baseline, and where there is not yet good data, a clear action plan should be made to gather this data by 2020, and use this as a baseline for binding reduction targets. We therefore call for you to advocate to replace “should aim to” with “will be bound to” (or similar) in amendment 25 at the upcoming plenary vote, and add provision to gather data for use as a baseline by 2020. Amendment 10 currently excludes “primary production losses”. It is vital to include all food loss and wastage on farms in the 50% reduction target, because according to some estimates it accounts for between 11% (FUSIONS, 2016) and 35% of Europe's food waste (FAO, 2011). We call on you to advocate to remove “excluding primary production losses” from amendment 10 at the upcoming plenary vote. ******* Keep up the fight against food waste! Martin and This Is Rubbish team