By 2030, food waste will be sliced in half

Published: 2 May 2022
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loaf of bread on table with hand holding on top and knife cutting slices

Powered by circular economy innovation and investment, our food and organic waste going to landfill is on track to be sliced in half by 2030.

Over the last 2 decades, food and organic waste collection has increased by a whopping 388 per cent – meaning more Victorians are recycling food and garden waste than ever before.

Households across the state are getting better at sorting their waste as more food and garden organics bins are rolled out, helping divert food and garden waste from landfill.

But it’s not just households working to reduce organic waste. Businesses are building an appetite for a more sustainable food chain in Victoria with many getting on-board with food waste-friendly ways of doing business.

Our Circular Economy Business Innovation Centre (CEBIC) is supporting creative ways for businesses to slice food waste. Things like turning beer brewers’ spent grain into flour and giving new life to “ugly” fruit and veg, upcycling it into new food products.

Turning beer into bread sounds good to us.

Supported projects will:

  • reduce or recycle food waste by 50,280 tonnes each year
  • contribute 4.2% toward Victoria’s target to halve food waste.

>> To learn about CEBIC supported projects helping to reduce food waste, visit Business Support Fund.

For every loaf of bread Victorians eat, we throw half a loaf away. Source: CEBIC Path to Half Report.

Big business is getting involved in cutting down on food waste. Supermarket giant, Woolworths, is working with Premier's Sustainability Award winner OzHarvest to deliver surplus food to more than 1,500 charities across Australia in an effort to feed Australians and cut down on food waste.

>> Read about OzHarvest's award-winning program.

Did you know 2.4 million tonnes of food waste in Victoria in 2020

Why we need to stop feasting on food waste

Cutting food waste in Victoria is important because:

  • it costs us a staggering $6 billion of lost product value and disposal fees
  • creates 3 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions
  • wastes 29 billion litres of water.

As part of our Path to Half report, we identified 25 solutions to halve food waste in Victoria by 2030. We highlighted the top things that we can do, looking at the journey of our food from “farm to fork”, reducing food waste by 635,000 tonnes. This includes everything from reconsidering the shelf life of food products at your local supermarket, to increasing food rescue, recovery and donation.

Path to Half is a report on the true cost of food waste in Victoria and ways to prevent it.

>> Read about Victoria's plan to halve food waste.

By rescuing and redistributing food that would otherwise go to waste, we’re maximising resources across the entire supply chain. To build a truly circular economy where nothing goes to waste, we need to treat food waste like any other resource. Like old plastic packaging getting recycled into new packaging, we need to keep thinking about how to use food waste to help grow or regenerate new food.

Future trends

SV is looking to the future of sustainability in Victoria. We’re unpacking the future trends that matter and spotlighting key opportunities for innovation and investment as we look to a future defined by our transition to a circular, climate-resilient economy.

Learn about 4 more future trends that will shape Victoria’s climate resilient economy by 2030.

By 2030, single-use will be a dirty word
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By 2030, the fashion industry will be obsessed with sustainable practices
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By 2030, our homes could help power the nation
Households across Victoria are becoming their own power plants as a renewable energy boom puts power back in the hands of communities.
By 2030, doughnuts will be good for our health and wellbeing
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