An original way of combating food waste – foodshedding – is becoming increasingly popular in Russia. The statistics are staggering: it turns out that around 40% of food that could be more efficiently used is thrown away in the country every year. The experts have established that losses occur at virtually every stage of food production: more than 8% of products are lost at the farming stage, the same amount will be lost during processing. Losses in shops are not that extensive, but they are not happy either, as they amount to about 5%. Households are the most wasteful, accounting for 12% of all food losses. Add to this another 7% of products lost due to inefficient logistics and transportation, and we get a dismal 40%.
Foodshed projects are currently saving around 7,000 tons of food every year, but with the right organisation and the use of modern information technology, it is possible to increase this to 1 million tons per year. In this way several important goals for society can be achieved at once: to deliver food to those who need it and to reduce the amount of food waste and, consequently, the amount of harmful substances released into the environment.
Experts estimate that the amount of food delivered by food-sharing is enough to provide 1.3 million people in need of food aid.
Alexandra Legkaya, founder of the food donation group Give Away Food, says that the number of supporters of the movement grows every year. Interestingly, it’s not just needy citizens who take away expired products, but also those who do the same to save food from ending up in landfill.
To make the search for products intended for free transfer more efficient, two chatbots, @AIFoodBot and 1 MLN TONN, are already operating in Telegram in test mode. ANO Russia – Land of Opportunity, in cooperation with the Russian Association for Electronic Communications, announced a contest to make it easier to find the right set of products online. Now there is no need to look through a huge number of advertisements, just specify the area where it is convenient to pick up the products you need, and the bots will do the rest.
Anyone with surplus food can take part in the food drive. Every day volunteers go to vegetable depots, shops and canteens to pick up several tonnes of produce, mainly fruit, vegetables, pasta and cereals.
Source: bread.su
