Together to give food a second life | LIFE-Food.Waste.StandUp

Raising awareness about food waste (Italy wastes about EUR 12.6 billion worth of food annually): this is the goal of LIFE – Food.Waste.StandUp project. It is an awareness-raising campaign focusing on the prevention of food waste and the recovery of surplus food promoting donations for charitable purposes. The campaign will be widely disseminated throughout the national territory and involve the entire supply chain: production, distribution and consumers.

The three-year project (2017-2019), which is co-funded by the European Commission under the Programme for the Environment and Climate Action (LIFE 2014-2020), was officially presented at the Ministry of Agricultural, Food and Forestry Policies on 16 November. All the partners of the project attended the launch event: Federalimentare (project leader), Federdistribuzione, Fondazione Banco Alimentare Onlus and Unione Nazionale Consumatori.

The awareness campaign and the information of LIFE – Food.Waste.StandUp is going to address three strategic targets: 20,000 companies in the food production sector, 12,000 retailers in the distribution sector, and 500,000 consumers. The overall goal consists in disseminating information and models for the management of surplus food and the donation process.

The project also plans to activate infopoints in 59 cities of 15 regions to provide consumers with information on practices to prevent food waste.

Recovering surplus food before it becomes waste and giving food a second life to help people in need: good practices arising from a good "circular partnership".