This is a foodsharing kickstart, that takes place during two weeks in Bilbao. It was prepared beforehand, almost exclusively by @Joachim Thome and our local contact @Unai Gaztelu. During the kickstart @Janina Abels was also present.

Contents:

The main challenges, that need to be tackled in order to build a working foodsaving and -sharing project are community building and cooperation creation. To create cooperations it is important to talk to a lot of stores to try and convince them. It is perfectly normal, that many don't want to or need some time until they finally agree to regular pick-up times, so it can never hurt to ask them early. To build a community it is useful to hold events together, to raise awareness of all the waste that is going on, and to then integrate new people into existing structures, that's why it is smart to start with some enthusiastic people, who can build up maybe one or two cooperations and/or FSPs, before engaging with the wider public.

• Joachim got the contact of Unai via a friend, so he knew that there were people wanting to start foodsharing in Bilbao.

• Unai came to know the idea of foodsharing in Copenhagen and was (and is still) enthusiastic about starting it in his hometown as well.

• Unai had already created a closed facebook group for foodsharing Bilbao, to collect and connect other people interested in the topic.

• Over the course of more than two months Joachim coached Unai in weekly online meetings. In total 9 conference calls were held.

• These conference calls were made public through the facebook group, and a doodle was used to specify the exact time for each call individually.

• Sometimes other people took part in the calls, be it Bilbaoans or yuniteers, but no call had more than 4 participants.

• Still, the proceedings of each call were documented in the facebook group as well, to keep possibly interested people up-to-date.

• Joachim linked Unai to the resources we already collected for international foodsaving groups:

  • The documentation on the wiki.

  • The foodsaving tool.

  • The info of other existing initiatives.

• He also encouraged Unai to go out and already make some contact with stores, look for Food-Share-Point locations, maybe find a fridge and think of what he wants to do and achieve with this foodsharing project in general.

• Soon it was clear that transportation will be an issue, since Unai has neither a car nor a bike trailer. Joachim knows how to build stuff, and events a good community building catalysts anyways, so they decided to build a simple bike trailer together.

• When the time drew nearer for Joachim and Janina to actually come by Bilbao, Unai went out to ask in workshops, squatted buildings and community centers, if they'd be willing to let us use their facilities to kickstart foodsharing - either by building the bike trailer mentioned above or by holding presentations about foodsharing in general.

• He also made it possible that the two yuniteers could be hosted in his father's flat - thanks again for that!

Joachim and Janina started hitchhiking from Saasen on March 29 and arrived in Bilbao at 11am of March 31.

• The 1st day Unai took Joachim and Janina on a walk through the city, which was both productive and fun. They visited:

  • Recreaz - a private workshop at Mariaren Bihotza Plaza. This will be the place to build a bike trailer.

  • A srap metal shop - in Gimnasio Kalea. They told us that to ask for material for the bike trailer we should come in the morning, where the not-so-nice boss is not around...^^

  • A bike shop - in Gorte Kalea. They had one wheel to spare, but since it was only one and pretty big we left it there for now. They pointed us to:

  • Ciclos la Ferro - another bike shop in Martzana Kalea, who didn't have any fitting parts to spare.

  • Bilbiko Kultua Etxea - a squat, where we could hold a presentation and maybe have some other people sleep for some nights. We'd need to ask again at the assembly of the house. They also pointed us to:

  • The wheel man - a guy that could maybe help us with getting wheels for the bike trailer. Unfortunately he was not there at the time, but we'll try again.

  • Karmela - in Fika Kalea. A huge compound full of possibilities and people, that is well integrated into the neighborhood (e.g. the old people come here to do Tai Chi together). We were told to write an email to ask for a presentation space, as they have so many people coming to their assemblies, that they often lack time to discuss internal stuff...^^

Everywhere we went the people were friendly and cooperative. In most cases Unai had already been in contact with someone via facebook or email, but we didn't have any appointments. Still, we got full house tours in both squats and nobody was in a hurry or seemed to want to get rid of us.

At night we did a short dumpster diving tour and found quite some bread, a bag of lettuce, half a jar of mustard, as well as one single Jiaozi. No supermarket dumpster was found accessible so far, but some smaller shops seem to put their trash into the bis in the streets, together with the households. Another interesting thing is, that the organic waste dumpsters are locked and the key is handed out only to the people who request an organic bin from the authorities. That's probably to precent people from throwing random stuff into the organic waste dumpsters. Unai's father has such a key, we'll try to dumpster dive with it next time.

• The 2nd day Joachim and Janina spent mostly at Azkuna Zentroa, the huge cultural center in the heart of the city, where there is WiFi, working space and clean toilets.

  • Janina started documenting the progress on the wiki, to keep the information available.

  • Joachim wrote to Laura, the initial Bilbaoan contact and researched some more spaces.

Afterwards they met with Unai again, this time Leire joined as well, and made a more detailed plan for the coming week, namely:

Apart from these appointments, there are the following things to do inbetween:

This night's dumpster diving tour was more random and not that successful: In the street we looked first the bins had just been emptied - we even saw the garbage truck. We roamed some more streets and randomly looked into the dumpsters, but all we found was a package of Japanese bread crumbs (you now, those light and flakey ones). We'll see what we can do with that...^^

• The 3rd day Joachim and Janina went to espacio open together with Leire to talk to Karim, a guy Unai had already been in contact with via email. Unfortunately he was pretty busy and apparently we should have made an appointment, but hey... now he already knows our faces, we know his and we know that he speaks English, that their workshop is generally available as long as we have our own material and that they're willing to repost the invitation to our foodsharing introduction event.

  • Karim told us to write an email with all other questions and info.

Afterwards Janina went to Az (=Azkuna Zentroa) again, created a free card for the library (and all libraries in Basque Country actually) and booked a small study room, so that she and Joachim could work together on the invitation. They got a room for 45 minutes starting at 8pm and @Former user (Deleted) and her friend Fernando, who just got to Bilbao that day joined as well.

This is the invitation Joachim prepared beforehand, and which was then finalized by all of them together:

Open

The obligatory dumpster diving walk that followed lead to the confirmation, that the only good spot they had found so far was one small bakery. But at least they got some bread and viennoiseries again (and three tiny packages of ketchup, as well as some sad salad, but that maybe doesn't even count...).

• The 4th day began with Joachim and Janina picking up Unai at 9:30am to go to the stores again, which he had already successfully contacted beforehand.

  • One organic supermarket - Unfortunately the boss was not there, but we called her and were able to arrange an appointment for the following day.

  • One small panadería - The boss was extremely relaxed and cooperative and agreed to us coming again on Wednesday and Friday to pick up his leftovers.

  • One branch of a huge supermarket chain - The local boss expressed interest, when Unai visited the last time, but this time a representative from the headquarters was there as well and she was more cautious. Still, the general willingness to cooperate was still apparent, they just wanted us to contact the headquarters, so that they wouldn't risk to run into conflict with the higher levels of hierarchy in their enterprise.

It was definitely good, that Unai came well prepared: He brought a copy of the liability contract, which he already translated before, as well as other info material (you know, the resources on the wiki). That, as well as Joachim telling them about the fact that in four years of foodsharing in Germany there has never been a single case, where stores had liability problems because of them letting foodsavers pick up their leftovers, put the more nervous representative of the huge and well-known supermarket chain at way more ease.

The two stores we successfully visited are two great examples of how different shop owners can be and how important it is to flexibly adapt to their attitudes. The boss of the small panadería didn't even want to give us specific times for the pick-ups - he just said 'Come whenever you want to...' - and he wasn't worried at all about possible risks, so that we'll need to specify concrete pick-up times ourselves to prevent foodsavers from just randomly going there and to keep up a certain level of organization. Handling a branch of a multinational corporation is something completely different after all, and in these cases professionalism is key.

That's why we started writing the draft for a mail to the Spanish headquarters of the mighty chain, trying to be short and concise, while sufficiently informative at the same time.

This night's dumpster diving tour was limited to checking out the known bakery and lost of cream-filled pastries, possibly whole-grain croissants and some white bread rolls could be saved.

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• The 5th day Joachim and Janina's first appointment was at 5:30 pm, so they took the chance to do some sports (Joachim) and sleep in (Janina). At noon Janina went to Az again, to finally start working on the presentation for the introductory event, which would need to be held in Spanish. The first slides are now created and fortunately Unai will proofread them...

  • At 5:30 Joachim and Janina met with Fenja and Fernando again and when Unai showed up, all of them went to the organic supermarket again, to finally have the talk with the bosses.

  • They were super friendly and interested in cooperating with us! We can go there every working day and pick up, what can not be sold anymore and was left over by the employees as well, so the amounts will definitely be manageable. They also agreed to us publicizing our cooperation: Thank you Ecorganic! May this cooperation be long-lasting and pleasant!

The time between the talk with the bosses and the first official pick-up at Ecorganic was spent at Az again, where Janina put more thought into the letter to the central of the huge chain. Luckily, she found a section on the official website of the corporation, that states, that one of the enterprise's goals is fighting food waste as well! This will be the major argument for them to allow a cooperation with foodsharing, apart from the great success of foodsharing.de in the German-speaking realm, the cost-reduction due to less garbage disposal needed and the possibly good PR - if they agree to us naming them.

At 9:30 pm sharp we stood in front of Ecorganic again, to make a reliable and punctual first impression. Maybe that was a too German approach, because the staff was just starting the closing procedures of cleaning and sorting and didn't really have time to look through the leftovers. The store manager told us to come a bit later the next day (~ 9:45 pm), but that it would be fine for today if we just took everything, so that we didn't need to wait for so long. Well, thank you, store manager!

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• The 6th day started with Tai Chi at KRML for Joachim and with a shower for Janina.

  • At 11:30 am Janina and Unai met at the smaller library close to their places, to talk more about the liability contract. Unai had translated the one from Edinbourgh, but was not completely sure about the general structure of the contract. He had some pretty good questions like:

    • Don't the stores need to sign the contract as well?

      • Answer: No. It's just the foodsaver, who sign for taking responsibility. The stores don't need to sign anything, since the agreements on pick-ups times and such are flexibly changeable anyways, and the they don't need to sign for the foodsavers to be able to be liable for what happens with the saved food.

    • Where will the signed contracts be stored and who has access to them?

      • Answer: Good question, in Germany they're integrated into the online platform, which definitely means that foodsharing has them. You could just make a box full of signed prints and store it wherever you have room for it, while still holding it accessible. It would definitely be nice to also have a digital solution for this, maybe via a form? Would that be legally binding?

    • If the stores want copies, do we give them all or just a randomly chosen one?

      • Answer: Well if you offer them your box full of paper, I bet they suddenly won't be so interested in having all the contracts anymore...  It will probably be enough to guarantee them that every single foodsaver has signed the liability contract, and that the copies are available, whenever the need should arise. Still, they need to be relaxed in order to keep cooperating, so abide to whatever wishes they might have!