Start your Food-Share Point now! (PDF version)

Please read through them carefully, so that you can avoid some common mistakes and will have your local foodsharing initiative flourishing! We want you to succeed and therefore share our experiences with you. We are nevertheless also aware of extremely differing circumstances in different areas of the world, so don't hesitate to adapt our approach to your situation as much as you see fit!

And please tell us how this all works out for you!

→ Contact us via mail! foodsaving@yunity.org!

→ Join our team chat for direct communication: https://slackin.yunity.org/

We wish you all the best for your foodsaving and sharing! Thank you very much for your will to fight food waste together with us!

Food-Share Point

A place where saved food can be distributed to the public. A Food-Share Point ideally consists of a fridge and a cupboard but can also be only one of the two. The most important requirement is that the food can be accessed by everyone.

How to run a Food-Share Point

Food-Share Points get stocked by individuals who happen to have a surplus of food they cannot eat before it perishes (e. g. before going on vacation or because of mistakenly having bought something they don't like). Everybody is entitled to take out food without any attached obligation or need of further legitimation.

Every Food-Share Point is managed by a team of local foodsavers. Everybody can organize Food-Share Points and we recommend to build a team of responsible people and at least one head of the operation to keep the overview. This team takes care of cleaning and makes sure that no risky food is shared. (More info on what is classified as risky food further down.)

Every Food-Share Point needs to have the rules, the statement on politics and religion (if necessary) and the cleaning rota displayed, respected and filled out accordingly (You can find template documents in the appendix of this manual.)

If you use a foodsaving platform like foodsharing.de or foodsaving.world, be sure to enter your Food-Share Point there, as it facilitates managing the team, the cleaning schedule and the communication.

No-Gos linked to Food-Share Points

Risky food can pose a health threat and is therefore not fit to be shared via Food-Share Points!
Never place donation boxes next to a Food-Share Point since the distribution of food is supposed to take place unconditionally! Apart from that, collecting donations can lead to trouble with the authorities if they think that collecting money is one of your main goals and can therefore change your legal status (at least in Germany that is a big issue)!
Video-surveillance may seem handy in some cases, but it violates the privacy of the people who come and get food as well as the foodsavers'.
Delicate food can only be shared chilled! This category contains e.g. pasta or potato salads, cakes with creamy fillings or toppings and all food that needs to be stored at +2 to +8°C according to the packaging.

Requirements to an appropriate location

The location needs to be accessible for as many people as possible, ideally for everyone. If spaces are chosen that are somehow linked to party politics or religion we display our statement on politics and religion on the Food-Share Point for everybody to see. To stay true to our distance to party politics, we never use party constituency offices! Locations linked to religion of any kind can only be used if people of different or no faith are also able to reach the Food-Share Point without any problems.

Legal foundation

Since the legal situation in every country is different it is of utmost importance, that you check it out beforehand if you don't want to run into bad surprises! In Germany we had a deal with the authorities to be classified as a private endeavor since we don't take any money and intend the food to be taken out by individuals on their own accounts. But even after all the talking and bargaining with the German bureaucracy we recently faced some problems we need to figure out now. So be sure to talk to a lawyer or someone who knows the legal circumstances to questions like:

What happens if somebody gets food poisoning from shared food?
How can your team of foodsavers be safe from liability issues?
What does it take for the authorities to close your Food-Share Point and what can you do to prevent that?

Notices

Information to be printed out and displayed at the Food-Share Point. The rules sheet and the cleaning rota should be visible and respected at every Food-Share Point, whereas the statement on politics and religion only needs to be put up if the nature of the location requires clarification on those topics. Templates for rules sheet and cleaning rota in English language and with formatting are to be found in the appendix of this manual. Feel free to use them or translate, modify and extend them as you see fit!

Since the statement on politics and religion is text only, we didn't prepare a template for it and only put it down here:

Statement on politics and religion

foodsharing comes from a political background but is not affiliated with any political party or religious organization. We refute any claims to the contrary.
foodsharing does not tolerate inhuman, racist, discriminatory, sexist or destructive behaviour.
The religious or political background of individual volunteers is disregarded, as we are united with the vision of saving food.
We assert that foodsharing is a form of free action with the aim of preventing food waste, posessed by all human beings from birth.