Most large Festivals as we know them today produce tremendous amounts of waste, the most distressing of which is food waste. Edibles are thrown away on a large scale in many aspects of festival culture:
the food the visitors bring is often more than sufficient in amount and a lot is left on the campgrounds
food stalls often have difficulty in bringing and producing the right amounts as their sales are hard to calculate and very dependent on the weather, so most will rather bring too much then too less
backstage catering can be a large producer of food waste as a certain abundance is often expected in these areas.
We as foodsharing try to find solutions to minimize food waste in all these sectors together with the festival host. Solutions can be:
creating “food sharing stations” on the festival grounds where the visitors can bring left over food and people who have not brought enough food can take what they need
collecting the food, that’s left behind at the camping areas by volunteers. These can be given to organizations nearby who care for the needy or to local foodsharing groups, that will make sure the food is brought to where it is needed
Collecting the excess from food stalls and backstage catering and either distributing it at the above mentioned sharing stations, or giving it to above mentioned organizations
In addition to these services we are also interested to sensibilize people on the matter of food waste.
We have a lot of information material and expertise on how to prevent food waste on a household level but also have a very elaborate system for minimizing food waste in trade, gastronomy, etc. which we would like to make interested festival visitors aware of. For this purpose we can offer information stands (best in combination with the above mentioned sharing stations), give talks or organize the presentation of a documentary movie on the topic.
