The Clean Plate campaign is a movement initiated in 2013 to reduce food waste and ensure food security in China. While the initial campaign originated from grass-roots society, it soon received government encouragement and support. Aligned with Chinese leader and CCP general secretary Xi Jinping's platform of anti-corruption and instilling more discipline among party members, there were government instructions and demands to limit the government spending on social banquet, which was a big contributor of food waste. However, other than that measure, the government mostly stayed out of the private realm with no central regulations on private practices of food waste. There was some local effort but most of it died out soon.
On 13 January 2013, a public charity organization in Beijing launched an anti-food-waste campaign which they later referred to as the "Clean Plate" campaign. Initially distributing posters and flyers in restaurants and gas stations, the campaigners quickly drew the attention of state medias, who covered the event on social media, making the campaign widely recognized and followed across China in ten days. Many saw the event as an example of the spread of public opinions and campaigns on social media in China, contemporary with the rise of internet media and smartphones. Some viewed the official endorsement of the campaign as not only targeting food waste in China, but also in-line with Communist Party chief Xi Jinping's anti-corruption campaign which urged cadres and government officials to stop lavish lifestyles.
In 2017, it was found that the food waste has almost returned to the original level before the campaign started. It shows the limited impact of the clean plate campaign in 2013 that is mostly led by individual actions. Starting then, there are new incidents of serious food waste in China that caught lots of public attention, like the bad social influence of food waste from "eating livestreams" and the most recent incident of dumping tons of dairy drink only for the QR code within the lid for fans to support their idols in a talent selection show "Youth with You 3".
It was around the same time that the government starts to take more proactive and firm actions on food waste. On August 11, 2020, Chinese leader Xi Jinping again announced the campaign of clean plate and urged the public to reduce food waste, especially amid the COVID-19 pandemic to ensure the food security for the mass population. Most recently, on April 29, 2021, the law of anti-food waste was passed through the Standing Committee of the Thirteenth National People's Congress.
Background
Food Waste in China
The 2018 WWF report on food waste in Chinese cities shows that a total of 17-18 million ton food is wasted annually in Chinese cities. On average, each citizen wastes 93 grams of food per meal in the cities surveyed (Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu and Lhasa), in which vegetable and staple food constitute the majority of the waste. Quantity of food waste is found to be associated with a variety of factors: restaurant size, purpose of the meal, etc. On average, tourists waste more food than local citizens; larger restaurants have more serious food waste than smaller ones; friend-gathering and business-purposed meals contribute to higher food waste, too. The study also finds the food waste in primary and secondary schools to be above average, potentially due to low satisfaction with the quality of school dining.
Consumer food waste in China takes up a significant portion in the country's total food waste. An estimated of 50 Mt of grain in China is annually wasted at the consumer stage, compared to 35 Mt at pre-consumer stages. 90% of consumer-stage food waste happens in mid to high-end restaurants and canteens in China, whereas in western countries such as the European Union, household food waste plays the biggest role (42%, 38 Mt), and food service sector trails behind at 14%. Alternative sources estimate the annual consumer food waste in China to be about 17-18 Mt in 2015, equivalent to the annual consumption of 30-50 million people.