Thanks to the Stop Wasting Food initiative, started by Selina Juul, Denmark has reduced food waste by 25% over the last five years.
Paul Emmet Writer, facilitator, activist
Selina Juul moved from Moscow to Denmark when she was 13 years old. She arrived from the turbulence of the post-communist East to the most modern, safe, and affluent society in the history of the world. This new beginning for a young Russian would have a catalytic affect on Denmark and create new hope for a cleaner, fairer, more sustainable world. So far she has been featured in Denmark’s Who’s Who for 2015, awarded the Dane of the Year prise in 2014, and was the winner of Nordic Council’s Nature and Environment Prize in 2013. Among those calling her for advice are the Danish Parliament, dozens of local and international companies, the EU Commission, and the United Nations.
Selina is the founder of Stop Wasting Food, an organisation focused on eliminating the huge amount of food we waste or throw away each year—a staggering 30% of everything produced. Not only is it a waste of resources, but a waste of time and money as well. Thanks to the Stop Wasting Food initiative, the Danish Agriculture & Food Council estimate that Denmark has reduced food waste by 25% over the last five years. This is no small number for a country that produces over 700 kg of trash per person per year (2015), the highest in Europe. Stop Wasting Food is now in the process of going global. After a recent BBC video interview, Selina has become the go-to-person for everyone from governments to concerned citizens who want to take effective action to end the waste which is a modern day epidemic. Juul has made great inroads by educating consumers, companies, and the Danish government about the problems of over-consumption. On the day of our interview she was very ill, still she managed to drag herself from her bed to her computer so we could talk. Even while she was burning up with a high fever, her determination and passion were contagious. Juul is a remarkable woman with the focus and energy necessary for bringing about real change. What was it like for you when you first came to Denmark from Russia? How did your new life begin? I first experienced Denmark as a very clean country. I was born in Moscow and after communism collapsed it was not at all clean. And wow, in Denmark, there was no trash on the streets, and it was very beautiful. But what I also noticed was the abundance, there was so much food in the supermarkets. I’d come from a country where there were food shortages, and the Russian supermarket was a supermarket with almost no food, and people queuing up to get what was left, a small piece of bread, a little scrap of meat. Coming to Denmark and seeing so many different types of food in supermarkets—well I immediately put on 5 pounds because I had to taste all those wonderful wonderful foods. But then I noticed the food waste. So how was the idea for Stop Wasting Food born? I was working in a supermarket, in the bakery as a trainee, and we had to throw the unsold bread away every evening. I asked them why are we throwing it away, why don’t we give it to the homeless people or to horses or something? I got very, very angry. As a teenager I was shocked by all the waste. This feeling of anger, well more of
disappointment, was with me for many years until, in 2008, I decided I’d had enough! So I started a Facebook group called Stop Wasting Food (Stop Spild Af Mad). By education I’m a graphic designer, I’m not even a journalist, or a food person, but what happened, two weeks later I was all over the national media. People were very happy finally that someone was doing something to stop the waste. But the real turning point was three months later when we were contacted by REMA 1000, the biggest discount chain in Denmark. They had read about my movement and they wanted to do something tangible. So they cancelled all their bulk discount offers, like buy 3 things for the price of 2. When this happened it was all over the press; government ministers contacted us and I had to go and speak at the Danish Parliament, then the European Parliament, and then the United Nations FAO congress! We won 26 awards and nominations, it went crazy and became huge. What kind of impact have you had so far? Are you making a difference? Now it’s estimated by the Danish Agriculture & Food Council, that in the last five years Danish consumer food waste has been reduced by 25%. It’s a good start but it has been a hell of a lot of work. It’s volunteer work—we have almost 63,000 followers on Facebook. We have collaborated with the government, with three successive Danish governments in a row. And now the BBC video is crazy, viewed by 20 million people in just seven days. Which is wonderful. Now we are up to 22 million views [at the time the magazine went to press] and people have gotten very inspired, so I am very happy. What about the other supermarkets in Denmark? Are they also on board? REMA 1000 were the first, five years later came Coop—the biggest Danish supermarket chain, and then also Danish Supermarket, KIWI, and LIDL. Today we have the greatest number of supermarkets with the most food reduction strategies in Europe. What do you want to achieve next? We are looking at how to make the movement international. Right now I blog on food waste for the Huffington Post in the US. We have a lot of requests from all over the world, and can we copy paste our idea to other countries, but it isn’t easy because Denmark is a small country, only 5,7 million people, and I’m not sure if we can have the same success in the United States and China, or Eastern Europe and Russia, because the mentality
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Thanks to a young Russian immigrant, a new initiative born in Denmark is addressing how and what we eat. Selina Juul is a food waste activist and her recent interview with the BBC was viewed more than 22 million times, resulting in 400 emails a day from people keen to follow her example.