Nature

Cutting waste

Over a billion tons of food are thrown away each year worldwide. This includes produce that never leaves the farm, is damaged in transport and distribution, or thrown away in kitchens. And it’s not just the food that gets wasted – so do all the resources such as energy and water needed to grow, manufacture, and transport it. That’s why it’s so important to reduce food waste to reduce the environmental, social, and financial impact. Find out more about our mission to cut food waste below.

Improving our supply chain

Tackling food waste throughout the supply chain

Food waste can occur at each stage of the supply chain, including processing, shipping, and use by customers. At Danone, we identified the key contributions to food waste and designed a toolkit of proven best practices to target those losses. This led to the development of our Battle Against Waste program.

The program focuses on assessing waste at each stage in the end-to-end supply chain, engaging with stakeholders, suppliers, and external partners to reduce food waste. Each production site is tracked by a robust reporting system and has financial and environmental targets to optimize processes and reduce waste.

Redistributing and recovering food with communities

Redistributing surplus food

Unfortunately, despite the volume of food wasted in the world, many still go hungry. Our partnership with the Global FoodBanking Network (GFN) facilitates redistribution and recovery of surplus products throughout our global networks, getting food that would otherwise be wasted to the communities that need it most.

From "use by" to "best before"

Date labelling

We’re changing the labels on our essential dairy and plant-based products to help reduce food waste in households. Wherever it is safe to do so, we’re replacing the quality label "use by" with the sensory label "best before" and encouraging consumers to use their senses to check that the food is still good to consume. This transition is being supported by educational campaigns in partnership with Too Good To Go.

Joining together for a bigger impact

Partners for impact

The more people with the same mission, the bigger the impact. We’re part of coalitions like Friends of Champions 12.3 - a group of leading policymakers and businesses dedicated to achieving the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) of halving food waste worldwide by 2030.

We’re also part of the 10X20X30 initiative and the Consumer Goods Food Waste Coalition of Action.

Food waste: a global concern

According to the United Nations (UN), an estimated 735 million people go hungry globally, food loss and waste generate 8 to 10 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, acting as methane hotspot. See UN 2024 Food Loss and Waste Reduction | United Nations

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By 2030 we aim to halve food waste compared to 2020 levels in line with the UN Sustainable Development Goal 12.3