It is with heartfelt gratitude that we announce the retirement of Dr. Julian Parfitt.
Julian has made a huge and lasting impact in both the food waste sector, and at Anthesis as Technical Director since 2014.
His ground-breaking work has made a significant contribution to the advancement and understanding of resource/recycling flows and waste statistics within the industry.
At Anthesis, Julian has played an integral role in shaping not only the Agri-food and waste team but the growth of the global business. We are hugely grateful to Julian for sharing his global expertise, collaborative leadership, and passion, which has inspired the next generation of sustainability enthusiasts.
Julian will be missed by the industry, his clients, and of course his Anthesis colleagues. We wish him a thoroughly happy and healthy retirement.
“Given the global reach of Anthesis and key clients within the food and drink sector, food waste work has flourished over the last 9 years, and I am proud to have played my part in this.
Highlights at Anthesis have included supporting Tesco’s food waste strategy, projects for the European Commission, a series of reports for the WWF/ Tesco Partnership, and work in South Africa to establish a food industry sectoral commitment to reduce food waste”
Dr. Julian Parfitt, Technical Director
Honouring the 40-year career of one of the UK’s leading food waste experts
Julian’s commitment to environmentalism began at an early age, with one of his earliest career highlights being a school project on the flora and fauna of the ancient water meadows of West Kent in 1977. This project concluded that ‘somebody should assess the real price of progress other than in pounds, shillings and pence’ – a thought that remained with Julian ever since.
Following this, Julian’s early interest in natural history shifted towards resource flow statistics, waste production surveys and waste analysis, which led to him being commissioned by the UK government to produce the first report on England and Wales municipal waste management and recycling statistics in the mid-1990s. This valuable system has since morphed into an online annual survey used by the UK municipal waste sector to inform policies and monitor progress.
He was also part of the team commissioned by Friends of the Earth to research an appropriate level for the UK’s landfill tax, taking account of the wider external costs caused by landfill operations.
From here, Julian went on to develop an interest in global food waste as a result of his work with the Future of Food and Farming Foresight project in 2010 – an interest that happily led him to Anthesis in 2014, where he laid the foundations for a series of Anthesis food waste projects.
Highlights from his time at Anthesis include Tesco’s food waste strategy, projects for the European Commission, a series of reports for the WWF/ Tesco Partnership on the scale and impact of food losses in primary production, and work in South Africa to establish a food industry sectoral commitment to reduce food waste.
Related Insights
Anthesis Delivers WWF UK Report Research – Hidden Waste: The Scale and Impact of Food Waste in Primary Production
Anthesis has delivered research to underpin the WWF’s latest food waste report, ‘Hidden Waste: The Scale and Impact of Food Waste in Primary Production’. The report uncovers the scale of edible food going to waste on UK farms and actions that the UK food system can take to support farmers in reducing waste.
Tesco Exchange: Supporting Tesco’s Suppliers to Reduce Food Waste
In November 2022, Anthesis supported Tesco to launch the Tesco Exchange to support over 3,500 of its suppliers to cut production costs and reduce waste by selling or donating surplus stock or products to other suppliers who can make use of them, hosted on the TSN.
Anthesis Publishes Research on Global Food Waste
Anthesis’ research into the scale and significance of global food losses in primary production has been published in a special issue of Sustainability journal.
