The 7th FEAD network meeting took place in Brussels on 21 September.

© European Commission

It featured a range of discussions and case studies on the prevention of food waste through FEAD actions. Network members participated in interactive discussions and activities that provided insights into the different aspects in the prevention of food waste as whole.

Panel Discussions and Workshops

Delegates attended two panel discussions on the differing perspectives on food waste. The first featured representatives from the European Federation of Food Banks (FEBA) and the Spanish Red Cross. Both organisations discussed the challenges faced by NGOs maintaining food banks. The second panel discussion centred on the implementations of food waste prevention initiatives by corporations, which featured representatives from three leading supermarkets: AB Vassilopoulos (Greece), Spar (Italy) and Tesco (Central Europe). Participants then attended two workshops that further explored the panel discussion perspectives.

The first workshop focused on FEAD examples of food waste prevention, including two case studies from FoodCloudHub (Ireland) and Cent Buttek (Luxembourg). In the World Café session afterwards, participants discussed the key learning points from these cases. The second workshop began with a presentation by FoodWIN, highlighting innovative ways to prevent food waste and inviting groups of delegates to come up with their ideal FEAD project.

Marie-Anne Paraskevas, Senior Policy Officer at the Directorate General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion and Anne-Laure Gassin, Policy Officer at the Directorate General for Health and Food Safety opened the meeting with a welcome address. Additionally, 88 delegates from 12 EU countries attended, sharing their knowledge and experiences in FEAD.