Samenvatting

The generation of food loss and waste is a topic that gained increasing attention over the past years. The most prominent estimate is that a third, or 1.3 billion tons, of the human food produced is wasted every year. The massive overproduction of food products on the one side and the malnutrition of 821 million people worldwide creates issues reaching from ethical conflicts to economical losses and huge environmental impacts such as greenhouse gas emissions and soil depletion. Many different national and international organizations try to tackle those issues and aim to reduce the impact that wasted food has in all parts of the value chain. This research was conducted to find information on how effective and impactful those organizations and incentive systems are on a national level. The Netherlands and Canada were chosen as target countries. Additionally, incentives and policies made on the level of the European Union (EU) were considered as they can have an influence on the operations of Dutch companies. In both countries, the food processing industry causes the most waste after the consumer. Therefore, the objective of the research is to find an answer to what impact incentive systems for food waste reduction have on the Dutch and Canadian processing sector.