54% of food waste in Europe comes from households.
This is revealed by 2022 data from Eurostat. To address the issue, the European Commission has launched a new cookbook aimed at inspiring people to make the most of the food they have at home.
The cookbook is titled “Zero Waste, More Taste! 27 Chefs’ Secrets to Reduce Food Waste.” It features 27 chefs from across the EU who share their creative, sustainable, and delicious recipes.
Troels Trier Vogel, Food Excellence Manager at Compass Group, is the Danish representative featured in the cookbook.
His recipe for a delightful salted apple caramel shows how to save those “ugly” apples from being thrown away.
Southern fruits are also given new life in everyday cooking. This is demonstrated by Compass Group colleagues from Luxembourg and Portugal in the cookbook.
Marc-Alexandre Schilz, Executive Chef at Compass Group Luxembourg, uses leftover bread and orange peels in a refreshing salad, while Telmo Neto, Executive Chef at Compass Group Portugal, serves up fish with mango peel sauce.
The cookbook also includes recipes that make use of everything from surplus rice and potatoes to cauliflower stems and watermelon rinds. These recipes aim to show how such ingredients can reach their full potential in culinary creations.
“By creatively utilising ingredients that would often be wasted, these recipes demonstrate that sustainability and gastronomy can go hand in hand,” says Sandra Gallina, Director-General for Health and Food Safety at the European Commission, in the book’s introduction.
The cookbook is part of the EU’s Zero Waste More Taste campaign, designed to accelerate progress toward the UN’s goal of halving food waste in EU countries by 2030.
You can download the cookbook for free here.