Standards Development

Scope

Standardization of procedures to mitigate Food Loss and Waste (FLW) by providing a framework for food organizations throughout the food chain to work actively and effectively to measure and reduce FLW across the whole food supply chain from the farm to the final consumers/customers.

The priority of the SC will be to provide the market with a new Management System Standard.

The intention of the proposed MSS is to embrace all food producing organizations wanting to reduce FLW by documenting, monitoring, improving, and reporting their procedures. The MSS should also provide a uniform framework for continual improvement and comparison of results, for use by businesses and other organizations.

The MSS is intended also to define measurement methods that might be used and give a comparison of their pros and cons.

The overall objective is that all deliverables produced by SC 20 shall respond to dynamic market and stakeholder needs. 

The MSS specifies requirements for a FLW management system standard (FLW-MSS) to enable an organization that is directly involved in the food chain:

a) to plan, implement, operate, maintain and update a FLW-MS to minimize FLW within its operations;

b) to contribute to reducing FLW throughout the food chain;

c) to evaluate and assess stakeholder FLW requirements and demonstrate conformity or compliance with them;

d) to effectively communicate FLW issues to interested parties within the food chain;

e) to ensure that the organization conforms to its stated FLW policy;

f) to demonstrate conformity to relevant interested parties;

g) to seek certification or registration of its FLW-MS by an external organization or make a selfassessment or self-declaration of conformity to this document.

All requirements of the FLW-MSS will be generic and are intended to be applicable to all organizations in the food chain regardless of size and complexity. Organizations that are directly involved include, but are not limited to farmers, feed producers, animal food producers, harvesters of wild plants and animals, producers of ingredients, food manufacturers, providers of transportation, storage and distribution services, retailers, food banks and organizations providing food services or catering services.

This MSS allows any organization, including small and/or less developed organizations (e.g. a small farm, a small packer-distributor, a small retailer or a food service outlet) to implement externallydeveloped elements in their FLW-MS.

Purpose

See justification study