Policies for the disposal of agri-food waste in the green economy sphere: Sustainable management of food waste in large-scale organized distribution

In the world one third of the produced for human consumption becomes waste: there are several losses along the food chain and this bad habit brought to useless waste of natural resources, energy, and labour, with prohibitive economic costs and worrying environmental impacts. In European countries bad habits and marketing policies of large retail chains contribute most to food waste. In response to this "new" alarming social issue, in recent years many Italian companies have improved new strategies to face the problem in a sustainable way. Sicily is working on policies to manage food waste from the perspective of environmental sustainability, in an attempt to define guidelines for the prevention and management of food surplus, according to an approach that involves various levels of the food chain up to the distribution, with the aim to improve efficiency and effectiveness throughout the different phases of the process. The Deco supermarket chain, of F. lli Arena S.r.l. actively engages in innovation and coordination projects and policies to better manage food waste, with agreements and donations to local non-profit associations, such as Caritas that redistribute products with TMC (minimum allowed term) expired but with a far final deadline. Each donation requires a deep audit process, an accurate delivery note (transport document) containing a self-declaration for a complete health and hygiene check.