The country's annual food waste volume is approximately 17.9 million tons. In money terms, this is about 1.6 trillion rubles or 895 thousand trucks, which can be lined up in a convoy back and forth from Moscow to Vladivostok. If failures in logistics, storage and production are taken into account, this volume increases to 42 million tons per year. Discarded products emit ~2.4 million tons of methane and 78.2 million tons of CO2. Food waste itself has a strong negative impact on the environment.
Food sharing can solve this problem.
Food sharing (from the English food share - “to share food”) is a fairly young movement to save food with an expiration date, which originated in Germany. This movement helps organizations get rid of unsold goods, and people in need feed themselves and their families.
While the main goal of food sharing is to reduce the amount of food that ends up in landfills, it also helps fight poverty and helps communities struggling to survive. For large companies and businesses, charity is an important part of their culture and image. Last year, companies such as X5 Group (Pyaterochka, Perekrestok, Chizhik, Karusel), the Magnit and VkusVill chains joined retail food sharing.
In Russia, food sharing has several directions:
Retail food sharing: when a company sells products with a suitable expiration date at a deep discount.
Charitable food sharing:
1. Foundation “Food Bank “Rus””;
2. the foodsharing.ru project, which brings together a huge number of volunteers from all over the country, picking up food from cafes, canteens and shops and distributing it to those in need;
3. websites and mobile applications - EatMe, LastBox, DoggyBag, Fstok online store;
4. VKontakte and Avito groups, local markets and local stores.
“Internal” food sharing.
Events often leave a lot of food waste and ready-made dishes that no one touches. We offer the following solutions to the problem of residuals:
1. Announce “internal” food sharing: inform participants and guests that they can take food containers with them so as not to throw away food, or give them your own (you can read more about disposable tableware here).
2. Set up a food sharing area: Designate a space at the event where people can drop off and pick up excess food. Let the local waiters help you with this.
3. Ensure cleanliness and order: Make sure that the food sharing area is clean and tidy so that participants do not doubt the quality of the products.
4. Communicate the rules: Prepare information on how to properly place and pick up food so that all event participants comply with sanitary standards.
5. Distribute the remainder also among the technical and service personnel of the event.
6. Use third-party organizations if there is too much surplus food - volunteers of foodsharing.ru and the “Rus Food Bank” are by far the most proven in the field of food sharing.
This is an interesting and not the most common, but the most environmentally friendly and truly beneficial way of preserving food. Try it!
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