There are a lot of organisations that are working against food waste. "An example is the Rotterdam Fruitleather. This company is very innovative and turns discarded fruit into sustainable leathery material," says Sebastiaan Kennes of the Belgian Foodwin. Besides this organisation he names more examples such as 'Wonkey', Fwee, Kromkommer, Snact, Re-fruit and Annebelle. The goal of all these companies is to reduce food waste. "It's good to think outside of the box."
Rest-O-Pack
Concerning projects with a big impact, he names the event 'Disco Soup' in Belgium, in which soup is made on the street out of tomatoes and other products that would otherwise have been thrown away. The concept Rest-O-Pack is a genius idea, using the leftovers from meals in a restaurant." Foodwin also organises 'Food Waste Challenges', in which they think about a food waste problem for a weekend. The group can then work on a business plan and make a proposal."
Picking apples
'Juice for change' is a project that was organised by Foodwin. "There was a moment in the fruit sector when a lot of apples were being thrown away. We then set up a crowdfunding page with which we picked 8,000 kilos of apples with 30 volunteers. With this volume we were able to make 1,100 boxes of juice and were able to give the grower a fair price due to the crowdfunding. Maybe saving strawberries is the new challenge? In Belgium an average of 170,000 tonnes of strawberries is wasted per year. (Flanders Food figures). What can we do about this?