ZeroW-Systemic Innovations Towards a Zero Food Waste Supply Chain

Project aim: While one-third of food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted globally each year, the ZeroW project aims to help the transition of current food systems towards halving Food Loss & Waste (FLW) by 2030 and reaching a near-zero level by 2050.

About the project: ZeroW has set the ambitious target of playing a key role in the transition of current food systems towards halving Food Loss & Waste (FLW) by 2030 and reaching near-zero FLW by 2050. ZeroW provides significant impacts through the demonstration of innovations in nine real-life food chains, by employing a systemic innovation approach, to effectively address the multidimensional issue of FLW. This involves: (i) pre-identifying systemic innovations, that incorporate multiple interlinked dimensions (process, organizational, strategy, marketing, product, technological, governance, etc.), which are tested and demonstrated; (ii) steering the evolution of innovations towards higher levels of systemic readiness and impact, using a Living Lab co-creation and multi-actor collective learning approach; (iii) enhancing the Living Lab actors’ innovation advancement capability with shared resources facilitating new ways and means of cooperating and co-developing innovations; (iv) developing context-specific trajectories for the systemic innovations (from ideation to scaling-up and commercialization) leading to the provision of currently missing end products and services that align with consumer attitudes, food actor needs and policy trends. Moreover, ZeroW establishes a clear ‘FLW impact trajectory’, from demonstrator results (2025), scaled up to meet the F2F 2030 goals, and steered through a ‘just transition pathway’ towards a near-zero FLW in 2050.