Skip to main content
European Commission logo
enen
Food, Farming, Fisheries
Food Safety

Food donation sub-group

About the group

Reducing food waste is one of the objectives of the Farm to Fork Strategy, which will also contribute to achieving a circular economy. 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 also has 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.

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 section "Members")

Previous Meetings