Within V4 countries, Slovaks pay the most for groceries. Despite this fact, Slovakia is wasting it. This is shown by Wood & Company´s analysis by Eva Sadovská from October 2023 that was published on the occasion of World Food Day, the 16th of October. Eva Sadovská from Wood & Company says the pace of food price increases is expected to slow down in the coming months. Although food will still be more expensive year-on-year.
Food waste Máte problém s prehrávaním? Nahláste nám chybu v prehrávači.
Within V4 countries, Slovaks pay the most for groceries. Despite this fact, Slovakia is wasting it. This is shown by Wood & Company´s analysis by Eva Sadovská from October 2023 that was published on the occasion of World Food Day, the 16th of October. Eva Sadovská from Wood & Company says the pace of food price increases is expected to slow down in the coming months. Although food will still be more expensive year-on-year.
The latest data for September 2023 show that food prices are still higher year-on-year. They are currently just over 11 percent. This is a lower rate of increase than at the turn of 2022 and 2023. Back then, food was almost 30 percent more expensive. The pace of price increases is slowing. We pay the most for sweets, vegetables, meat, dairy products, bread and pastries. The only foods that are cheaper than last year are oils and fats.
Analyst Eva Sadovska claims, that Slovak households spend 20 percent of their budget on buying groceries. In Europe it is less, at the level of 14 percent on average. According to Eurostat data for 2022, Slovaks have overtaken the rest of Europe in food prices.
For the first time, food prices in Slovakia were higher than the European average. By less than two percent. We have always had cheaper food than Europe. We have had the most expensive food in the V4 for a long time. Food is almost 30% cheaper in Poland, 5% cheaper in the Czech Republic and 12% cheaper in Hungary than in Slovakia.
Despite this data, we waste food in Slovakia.
The average Slovak produces 83 kg of food waste per year. More than three quarters of this waste comes from households. Most often we find unfinished leftovers of cooked food in the bins, but also unwrapped food after the use-by date. Then there are dairy products, bread and pastries, and fruit and vegetables and not just peelings. By wasting food and throwing it in the bin, we are throwing away 100-150 euros per person per year.
But why would we throw in the bin food worth up to 150 EUR? With Zuzana Madajová of Free Food civic association, we discussed at first the difference between the terms “use-by date” and “the best before date.
Zuzana Madajová says that when we are overfilling the fridge, we cannot keep a track of what’s inside. The stuff in the back is always forgotten and even can get frozen on the wall of the fridge. It effects the temperature in it and bacteria can spread more easily. One of the mistakes that society tends to make is putting everything in the refrigerator. What exactly doesn’t necessarily belong there?
In two locations in Bratislava, we can find so called Community Fridges. A project based on food sharing within a community such as a co-working centre, school, etc. Someone can bring into this kind of refrigerator food that they have already made use of and someone else can take it. This system was set up so to help prevent food wasting.
Zuzana Madajová of Free Food association explained that many Slovaks around the country are excited about the idea to implement these fridges in their town or within the communities. However, when they find out that maintenance of the refrigerator, energy costs and raising awareness among people are inevitable, the excitement usually fades out. Zuzana Madajová thinks Slovaks are still not used to sharing food.
The association that Zuzana Madajová works for, also initiated legislative changes regarding food donations.
The food bank provides a service for supermarket chains, growers and producers. If they have a surplus of food that is both healthy and visually safe, they can donate it to the food bank. Then this bank donates the food to charities or NGOs. They sign an agreement with both the donors and the recipients. According to Marko Urdzik of the Food Bank Slovakia, many people mistakenly think of the Food Bank as a charity.
The difference between us and a charity is that a food bank doesn't directly address poverty, it deals with not wasting food so it gets donated. Then we can donate it to charities and other organisations. At first, the producers hesitated, but gradually they realised that the food bank service was beneficial. Donors in Slovakia are interested in providing these type of goods.
There is only one food bank in Slovakia with three main centres: in Nitra in the west, in Kláštor pod Znievom in the north and in Lipany in the east. They also have local offices throughout the country. They are planning to expand the food bank service.
Today, we are already considering setting up food bank collection points where also individuals can bring donations. It is important that people only bring goods that are unopened, that are safe, that we know what is inside, that have a label. The reason is that we don't want to put the recipients of the donation at risk.
Analyst Eva Sadovská from Wood & Company says Slovaks are not using the full potential of bio-waste sorting. Even when sorting kitchen waste, they do not do it properly.
For example, they throw plastic in the form of a plastic bag in the food waste bin. Or they do not remove metal or paper residues from food. Waste separated in this way is not fully recyclable and often cannot be processed further. Many Slovaks still do not sort their kitchen organic waste. This may be because sorting is not the most convenient thing for people to do. Many may lack basic information on sorting.
So, how to sort kitchen waste properly? Every city might have it slightly different, but Zuzana Madajová of Free Food gives the basic recommendation on how to do it and says where the sorted bio-waste goes.
However, analyst Eva Sadovská points out that municipalities often have no local facilities for processing separated bio-waste. As a result, they have to transport the waste hundreds of kilometres to the nearest facility. The analyst thinks that this is neither an economic nor an ecological solution.
