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Food Safety

About the group

Redistribution of surplus food for human consumption, in particular through food donation, where safe to do so, ensures the highest value use of edible food resources while preventing food waste, and ensuring the surplus to people in need, weighing in an important social dimension.

In the first mandate of the EU Platform on Food Losses and Food Waste, the sub-group on food donation supported the Commission in the preparation of EU food donation guidelines (adopted in 2017 as part of the 2015 Circular Economy Action Plan) and contributed to the implementation of an EU Pilot Project on food redistribution and its related deliverables. The sub-group supported Platform members in sharing best practices, information and learning related to the recovery and redistribution of surplus food, in line with the waste hierarchy.

The Food donation sub-group will continue to support the work of the Commission and Platform members to facilitate safe food donation practices, ensuring that surplus food arising in the food supply chain is made available, as a priority, for human consumption. In its current mandate, the sub-group is looking into barriers and opportunities for food redistribution across the EU.

More information about the background and tasks of this sub-group can be found in its Terms of reference:

Full list of the subgroup members can be consulted on this page (under the section "Members")

Meetings 2024

10 December 2024 -  hybrid (Webex)

  • Agenda
  • Presentation - Barriers and opportunities for the redistribution of surplus food in the EU, results from survey and workshop by European Commission
  • Presentation - Horeca-Foodwaste-Red project by the Hungarian Food Banks Association
  • Presentation - A mapping on food banks in Sweden by the Swedish NGO Ätbart
  • Presentation - Recovering surplus food from the Olympic Games 2024 by Banque Alimentaire
  • Presentation - Best Practice from Kaufland x Tafel
  • Presentation - Best practice from Kaufland Croatia
  • Presentation - Best practice from Lidl Romania

Previous Meetings