Initial situation

foodsharing is only possible and necessary because we face a massive amount of food waste every day. In 2013 half of the globally produced food was thrown away[1], even though there are still around 57.000 people dying from starvation every day[2]. Especially in the so-called ‘first world’ a lot of this waste - around 100kg per person and year - takes place on the consumer level[3]. Apples with bruises, cucumbers which are too bent, zucchini which are too small and products that are either too expensive or too cheap tend to end up in the dumpsters of the retailers very quickly, even though most of them would be perfectly fine to eat. In private households, too, there is a lot of food being thrown away due to stupid reasons: The packagings are too big, there are way too many products and food is cheap, so many people just don’t think about handling it with care.

For more information on this topic we recommend you have a look at the according wikipedia page and watch the movie ‘Taste the Waste’ by our founding-member Valentin Thurn.

Approaches

Since there is a lot of waste in many different areas of production and consumption, we also have many ways to fight it. The main focus of the foodsharing.de online platform lays on building and maintaining cooperations with stores, so that they can reduce their garbage and save food together with us. But there also are the many, many individuals who we continuously reach out to! Raising awareness is only the first step: They are given the information on how to handle food properly to prevent waste and also the infrastructure to become part of the movement. Individuals can put their surplus food in digital food baskets for others to get (e.g. before going on vacation) so that no food needs to perish or be thrown away when it’s actually perfectly fine. And if they like the idea, everybody can become a Foodsaver and join in picking up surplus food at cooperating stores. On top of that we plan actions to save fruits and vegetables that don’t live up to the harsh criteria of the agribusiness: When the harvesting season has come we connect people and share information on where to find already harvested fields that still bear lots of produce. That way we can save huge amounts of broken carrots, bruised apples and bent cucumbers that don’t look perfectly but taste great and nourish just the same as those from the supermarket.

In summary we target three aspects:

• By establishing long-term cooperations, we save food from being thrown away at Stores. → sales level

• By providing information and digital infrastructure, we enable individuals to save and share food themselves. → individual level

• By informing and motivating people, who have the time, we save rejected produce straight from the field. → production level

Self-conception

Since foodsharing sees itself as a social movement and the corresponding online presence only serves as a tool to coordinate this movement, it is self-evident to us that every service we provide to the community is free of charge and advertising and will continue to be so. We understand that food is what keeps us alive and therefore we want to credit it with its deserved value, as well as make it available to everybody unconditionally. We do not compete with other initiatives that work against food waste but rather appreciate every action that is taken towards our common goal. This comprises not only the direct saving of food from the bin, but also of actively sustainable lifestyles like seasonally and locally orientated vegan diets and thoughtfully reduced consumption.

The long-term goal of foodsharing is to render itself superfluous by stopping the massive and systematic food waste.