This has negative impacts on the society, contributing to food insecurity, depleting the environment, generating avoidable greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and creating pressure on land and water. FOLOU will work to overcome these challenges by setting up a mechanism to measure, monitor and assess the magnitude and the impact of food losses.

There are several factors hampering the reduction of food losses. At regulatory level, food losses at primary production stage are currently excluded from the EU Commission Decision (EU) 2019/1597, which sets a common method and minimum quality requirements for the uniform measurement of levels of food waste at the national level. Moreover, at technical and scientific level there is a lack of a common measurement methodology to estimate food losses at the primary stage as well as an insufficient knowledge and understanding of the drivers behind it. Likewise, key stakeholders involved in the value chain often  lack the needed  skills and tools to efficiently prevent food losses and adopt tailored solutions.