The FOODRUS project will test 23 circular solutions to limit food loss and waste across three food value chains: vegetables and prepared salads (in Spain); meat and fish (in Denmark); and bread (in Slovakia).



The main priority of the FOODRUS work in Slovakia is to find solutions to prevent the loss and waste of bread within the final stages of the value chain, especially at consumer and retail level, and improve the distribution of surplus bread for human consumption by removing the current obstacles that hamper donations.

In Slovakia, bread is central to many national customs and traditions, and is part of the cultural heritage. As an integral part of the national identity, it should not feature among the most wasted foods in the country. In fact, wasting bread should be socially unacceptable.



Overproduction of bread is the main problem generating the biggest amount of bread wasted. A key strategy to prevent and reduce this problem is the organisation of behavioural change awareness campaigns targeting consumers, which would enable a transformational change throughout the whole bread value chain.



According to the partners of the FOODRUS project, the main hotspots for bread loss and waste are situated in households, retail and the HORECA sector. Due to the absence of official statistical data, preliminary estimates were made by the FOODRUS Consortium, according to which production contributes 5%, HORECA 15%, retail 30% and households 50% to waste in the bread value chain . Therefore, behavioural change of consumers is essential and can bring a transformational change into the whole food value chain.



In line with the EU waste hierarchy, the FOODRUS project considers the prevention of surplus bread and its re-use for human consumption as the most preferred options, followed by redistribution for animal feed, recycling of nutrients, and finally, energy recovery. To achieve these goals, a more active cooperation and participation of all relevant actors along the whole food chain and across all the involved sectors will be established over all stages of the project.

To reduce the loss and waste of bread, FOODRUS implemented several citizen-science activities, such as: research activities with households, development of a zero waste (bread) cookbook, campaign for supermarket customers, e-learning for schools, alliance of supermarkets for sharing the best practices, etc.

In addition, a Communication Plan was developed with the aim to raise awareness among the public on food waste issues (through workshops, webinars, presentations, events, conferences, videos, topical articles, blogs and news releases). A webpage in Slovak was developed for communication, information and research purposes: www.jedloniejeodpad.sk. Its domain translates as "food is not the waste".



Slovakia is a slow mover in the area of food loss and waste, with few existing mechanisms that are outdated and non-functional. Recently this agenda was reopened by the government. Currently there is a lack of statistics throughout the whole bread value chain, as well as many legislative barriers to food donations. State authorities have also failed to commit many resources to awareness raising. In addition, the domestic policy agenda related to food loss and waste is under the responsibility of two ministries, which creates an even bigger challenge in trying to reduce bread waste and losses.

The FOODRUS project will test 23 circular solutions to limit food loss and waste across three food value chains: vegetables and prepared salads (in Spain); meat and fish (in Denmark); and bread (in Slovakia).



In Denmark, the FOODRUS partners focus on promoting the Planetary Health Diet* by introducing alternative protein sources to partly replace the intake of meat, while increasing fish consumption and moving towards a more plant-based diet. The aim is to introduce and test more eco-friendly plates in the buffet of a local canteen supplier (Jespers Torvekøkken), hence replacing meat (especially red meat) with less environmental damaging foods.



The FOODRUS partners in Denmark identified the wholesale company Hørkram, one of the three largest catering wholesalers in Denmark and a supplier of Jespers Torvekøkken, as a hotspot for food loss generation (800-1200 tons/year in the period 2018-2021). The main opportunities for food waste prevention are, however, located downstream to Jespers Torvekøkken, in particular at the buffet (retail and service sectors) and customer (post-consumer) stages of the food supply chain. Therefore, the focus of FOODRUS is to test the social readiness level for climate friendly diets, which includes not only changing the types of food consumed, but also reducing the amount of leftover food in the canteens.



To this end, the FOODRUS partners have put a great effort into replacing red meat with plant-based alternatives purchased from the online shop of Hørkram, which includes a specific page dedicated to items to “Stop food loss”. Other innovative strategies implemented by the project are the use of the thin cuttings of high-quality meat pieces that Hørkram markets as “climate slices”, and the use of assorted cuttings for minced products (hybrid or classic meat and fish products).



A strong focus is also given to the co-creation and implementation of awareness raising campaigns to promote the consumption of foods with a lower environmental and carbon footprint, including raising awareness about the environmental footprint of plate waste**. The University of Copenhagen is responsible for the design and monitoring of the impact of such campaigns before and after the introduction of opportunities for informed choices for the customers in the canteen.



Notes:

*The Planetary Health Diet is the result of three years’ work by the Eat-Lancet Commission. The Commission set out to reach a scientific consensus by defining targets which would reflect both sustainable food production and a diet which would promote health.

**Plate waste is generally defined as the quantity of edible portions of food served that is uneaten and is a common reason for food loss at the consumer and foodservice levels.

The FOODRUS project will test 23 circular solutions to limit food loss and waste across three food value chains: vegetables and prepared salads (in Spain); meat and fish (in Denmark); and bread (in Slovakia).



In Spain, several partners are working together to implement different actions and circular strategies to reduce food losses and waste in the value chain of prepared salads. In doing so, the partners are able to leverage their prior expertise in reducing and monitoring food loss and waste in the various industrial and commercial processes that are involved in this value chain.



Though the situation has improved in the recent years, there is still a lack of a deeper coordination among the members of the prepared salads value chain as well as an insufficient use of common digital information tools and social actions addressing the existing generation points of food loss and waste. The FOODRUS project aims to define new circular strategies involving current and new stakeholders and creating tools based on collaboration and shared decision-making processes.



From the seed to the consumer waste management processes, different actions are implemented in the prepared salads value chain, involving technological and social activities, that are expected to lead towards a more valuable vegetal resources use, prioritising the food generation and other industrial processing for nutrients value extraction before composting what cannot be otherwise managed.



In the FOODRUS project the environmental, social and economic impact of the new solutions are evaluated with a Life Cycle Assessment* approach, with the aim to understand how sustainability increases after the implementation of new collaborative and circular strategies even in highly industrialised value chains, such as the prepared salads offered by large food distributors.



Notes:

* Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a method used to evaluate the environmental impact of a product through its life cycle encompassing extraction and processing of the raw materials, manufacturing, distribution, use, recycling, and final disposal.

The FOODRUS project is working to tackle food waste and losses by creating resilient food systems across nine European regions. To achieve this, the project will test 23 circular solutions to limit food loss and waste across three food value chains: vegetables and prepared salads (in Spain); meat and fish (in Denmark); and bread (in Slovakia).



The solutions will empower and engage all stakeholders in the local food systems, creating a sense of community and building a multi-actor alliance to tackle the challenges of food loss and waste. FOODRUS will also empower citizens by making them an active part of the solution.



The FOODRUS project applies several co-creative approaches to ensure the involvement of all stakeholder groups and citizens in the reduction of food waste and loss as well as to foster local awareness and the uptake of more inclusive circular food strategies.



This approach is also applied for the creation of the FOODRUS educational materials that will ensure the integration of a comprehensive knowledge base, best practices, and the tools and solutions developed in FOODRUS to empower stakeholders and facilitate the reduction of food losses along the agri-food value chain through participatory processes. The learning materials will be available through an e-learning platform to widen and diversify the means through which FOODRUS interacts with its target groups and builds their capacities.



Different co-creation tools were applied to collectively decide on the educational materials’ scope and structure. After narrowing down the FOODRUS solutions to be included in the platform, working groups were formed for each chosen topic. The working groups participated in a co-creation workshop where all solutions were presented and interactive tools (such as Miro, a digital whiteboard that makes it easy to collaborate with others) were used by the participants to be able to actively engage and provide real-time feedback about the scope of the learning materials. In the long-term, the working groups focusing on each solution will be contributing to the development of the platform’s content based on their results and project activities.



This approach ensures that the scope of the educational materials is tailored to the chosen user groups as well as fosters their empowerment to adopt more sustainable methods to reduce food waste and loss.

Many of the current challenges of the food supply chain require shared solutions between two or more stakeholders with potentially different or conflicting priorities. Building shared solutions requires a willingness to give up a part of oneself, one's time, information or decisions in order to achieve a common benefit.

To this end, the FOODRUS project has successfully carried out a process to co-design joint solutions in the following supply chains: vegetables and prepared salads (in Spain), meat and fish (in Denmark), and bread (in Slovakia), with the common goal of reducing food waste.



The objectives of this co-creation process are fourfold:

(i) To detect, share and understand the needs and expectations of each stakeholder towards a common goal.

(ii) To define the functions of a solution as a consensual middle ground.

(iii) To detect the role of stakeholders in the design, development, deployment and use of a solution.

(iv) To define realistic outcomes of the solution and the way to validate it.



The co-creation process is divided into four phases:

• The co-creation manager sets out a common solution and its expected outcomes, presenting it to stakeholders in an appropriate format and language.

• The co-creation manager leads face-to-face meetings in an appropriate climate and language, guides the discussion on the views of all stakeholders involved and provokes a shared listening.

• The co-creation manager collects all feedback received and incorporates it into descriptive documents in an appropriate format and language, and shares them with all stakeholders for feedback on the scope of the solution and their role in it.

• The co-creation manager holds multi-stakeholder meetings and iterates on the proposed solution, shaping it until consensus is reached.



The FOODRUS Consortium adopts this process to develop common solutions between stakeholders of the food supply chains, but the same steps can be applied and replicated also in other value chains

The FOODRUS project is working to tackle food waste and losses by creating resilient food systems across nine European regions. To achieve this, the project will test 23 circular solutions to limit food loss and waste across three food value chains: vegetables and prepared salads (in Spain), meat and fish (in Denmark), and bread (in Slovakia).



To measure the impact of the Food Loss and Waste (FLW) prevention strategies implemented by the project, the FOODRUS Consortium developed a set of key performance indicators (KPIs). This list of KPIs assesses the impact of the FOODRUS project considering social, economic and environmental aspects. These KPIs have been clustered in several groups according to the dimensions they address. To define the final list, several steps were followed under a co-creation perspective:



• Literature review of scientific and academic sources of information to collect the applicable KPIs that would form the initial long list.

• Grouping, screening, and adaptation of the KPIs to the requirements of the project.

• Consultation of experts on the KPIs’ relevance to the aforementioned purpose by using a survey.

• Analysis of the KPIs applicability to the different food value chain’s stages by means of a survey to the FOODRUS practitioners.

• Prioritisation of the KPIs via Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) with the participation of both experts and FOODRUS practitioners.

• Creation of a single sustainability index with the results of the process.



The knowledge of the experts and the direct experience of the practitioners guarantee the quality and the robustness level of the final list of KPIs and, consequently, of the index. The participation of the practitioners was also harnessed to conduct a preliminary assessment of the sustainability level of the three food value chains included in the project (prepared salads, fish and meat, and bread). The measurement of the KPIs will be done before, to set the baseline, and after the implementation of the FOODRUS prevention strategies against food loss and waste, to evaluate the impact of the project’s solutions.



The standardisation of this methodology was considered throughout the whole process, so that it could be applied to any other food supply chain and, thus, ease its replicability and transferability to other contexts. The methodology was also aligned with the current corresponding European regulatory frameworks.