PA 5: Increase donations at Food Banks to #reducefoodwaste in the Czech Republic
Food donations enable for food that would otherwise go bad to be given to people in need. But how to prevent this food to get spoiled in the food bank warehouse? Especially vegetables? Glopolis has a plan!
How do food banks work in Czechia?
Simply put food banks are warehouses that redistribute food from shops with surplus to poor people. Food banks are not-for-profit organizations that handle these donations on a large scale, that is from supermarket chains to dozens of NGOs who distribute the food to the households of marginalized communities, people without homes, and many others with severe financial or physical limitations. For example, there is about 120 NGOs that are clients to the Food Bank Prague. Usually these food banks work with big volumes and do not serve the individual people. In total, there is 14 food banks in the Czech Republic with 15th being opened this year. There is one in every regional city serving local clients and they all cooperate through a federation they formed.
Food banks, like many other NGOs, operate in a societal niche where state falls short and private companies have no incentive to go. They help to even out the dismal reality of piles of good food going to land fills while there are thousands of people with very limited access to healthy and nutritious food. Food banks often employ people disadvantaged at the labor market whose salaries are donated by the state. As there are no institutional grants in the country, food banks’ operation itself is funded only thanks to philanthropists and ad hoc grants. As a result, they often times find themselves with a lack of money. Yet, they always manage to do their work and redistribute the many tones of food trucks bring every day.
Some food retailers are more generous than others. Few started donating food already long years ago. Many stated such a donation would be too costly for them with the main declared reason being the obligation to pay the value added tax (of the food products purchasing price). This was exempted in late 2014 and since then supermarkets do no need to pay VAT, which led to increase in the volume of donations. Yet another legislative act came into effect months ago.
Since 2018, big retailers must donate food products which cannot be sold but are still safe to eat. This definition translates to food items with mislabeled packaging, or mistakes written on the label, damaged packaging, etc. Stores larger than 400m2 have to offer such products to a nearby food bank or charity before they could dispose of it. Stores can declare the value of the product to be 0 CZK, not pay VAT and the food bank comes with their own car to pick it up. This system forced many stores to start donating, the food volumes increased dramatically including products which do not fall into the mandatory donation definition, eg. vegetables and fruits. In such situation the underfinanced banks were facing a wave of donation to handle. They could always decline the donation but that would be a pity. And a food waste. Luckily, they have been preparing for the new legislation affect well ahead and joined forces with the organization Glopolis and the STREFOWA project.
Food banks, like many other NGOs, operate in a societal niche where state falls short and private companies have no incentive to go. They help to even out the dismal reality of piles of good food going to land fills while there are thousands of people with very limited access to healthy and nutritious food. Food banks often employ people disadvantaged at the labor market whose salaries are donated by the state. As there are no institutional grants in the country, food banks’ operation itself is funded only thanks to philanthropists and ad hoc grants. As a result, they often times find themselves with a lack of money. Yet, they always manage to do their work and redistribute the many tones of food trucks bring every day.
Some food retailers are more generous than others. Few started donating food already long years ago. Many stated such a donation would be too costly for them with the main declared reason being the obligation to pay the value added tax (of the food products purchasing price). This was exempted in late 2014 and since then supermarkets do no need to pay VAT, which led to increase in the volume of donations. Yet another legislative act came into effect months ago.
Since 2018, big retailers must donate food products which cannot be sold but are still safe to eat. This definition translates to food items with mislabeled packaging, or mistakes written on the label, damaged packaging, etc. Stores larger than 400m2 have to offer such products to a nearby food bank or charity before they could dispose of it. Stores can declare the value of the product to be 0 CZK, not pay VAT and the food bank comes with their own car to pick it up. This system forced many stores to start donating, the food volumes increased dramatically including products which do not fall into the mandatory donation definition, eg. vegetables and fruits. In such situation the underfinanced banks were facing a wave of donation to handle. They could always decline the donation but that would be a pity. And a food waste. Luckily, they have been preparing for the new legislation affect well ahead and joined forces with the organization Glopolis and the STREFOWA project.
Sometimes a damaged packaging of the pallet is enough for the product to be refused by a retailer
How to prevent food waste at food banks?
The highest risk of food waste is naturally with perishable foods like vegetables, fruits, pastry, meat or milk products. The Food Bank Prague gets mostly canned food and other durable products like flour, sugar, chocolate, etc., but the share of vegetables has been observed to rise here in last years. Several adaptations measures were discussed with the final choice being building a new kitchen. This was after some calculations and trials. Getting a big freezing room would accommodate incoming meat and establishing a kitchen would enable vegetable to put cooked, shock-freezed and preserved. This increases the time window the food bank has to find a client. Usually this happens within one day but they do not want to risk the vegetables to go bad at the food bank premises. Moreover, now they can distribute ready meals, for instance their client the Salvation Army would not get mere vegetables but hundreds of portions of already cooked soup, which they can server to people without homes. Number of donors chipped in and started to make the kitchen a reality.
As the STREFOWA seeks and funds new measures that prevent food waste in Central Europe, this food bank case was identified by Glopolis as a good pilot action others can later learn from. As the kitchen goes into full operation, evaluation of the effectiveness, of the costs and benefits will be made for the Food Bank Prague and made available to other food banks in the region that are deciding over their own kitchen.
As the STREFOWA seeks and funds new measures that prevent food waste in Central Europe, this food bank case was identified by Glopolis as a good pilot action others can later learn from. As the kitchen goes into full operation, evaluation of the effectiveness, of the costs and benefits will be made for the Food Bank Prague and made available to other food banks in the region that are deciding over their own kitchen.
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What does the new law mean for food banks?
Already since the exemption from the VAT payments for donated food at the end of 2014, the amount of food donated to food banks has grown considerably (they have received over 1000 tons of food in 2016 alone compared to 5000 tons in 2006-2015 altogether).
A further increase in donations was expected in 2018 when a new legislation will come into force making it an obligation for stores of over 400 sq. meters to donate certain food products to charitable organizations.
A further increase in donations was expected in 2018 when a new legislation will come into force making it an obligation for stores of over 400 sq. meters to donate certain food products to charitable organizations.
Next steps
Glopolis will do a cost benefit analysis as a base to provide the manual for other food banks to scale up the system to implement kitchens in the routines of food banks to preserve some of the surplus food received. Glopolis will provide lessons learned to other food banks in the Czech Republic and further in Central Europe.
