FOOD-RULES, a two-year initiative co-financed by the European Union and carried out by RISTO3 (https://risto3.it), Banco Alimentare del Trentino Alto-Adige/Landestafel Odv (https://www.bancoalimentare.it/sedi-locali/trentino-alto-adige), and Shair.Tech (https://shair.tech), defined a tool-based, light-weight methodology to measure surplus food, experimented the methodology in canteens run by RISTO3, a leading catering cooperative, getting significant data about surplus, contributing to the definition of some concrete actions to reduce surplus and helping recover 2.33 tons of surplus food, distributed to people in need.

In fact, despite food service waste constituting a small percentage of total food waste, its economic and environmental costs are significant, as it involves the loss of labor, resources, and energy invested in food preparation. The project is structured into five work packages: project management, organizational change, implementation of methodologies, stakeholder engagement, and dissemination. Shair.Tech’s BringTheFood app, which has registered over 24,000 tons of food donations, supports the project's data collection and donation tracking efforts.

Measurements of food waste and surplus donations involved the use of specially designated bins in canteen tray drop-off areas, and data is recorded in BringTheFood daily. Since the start, over 1,000 waste data points have been collected, and donations have recovered 2.23 tons of food, saving an estimated 3.58 tons of CO2e and 2.43 million liters of water. The donation process is ongoing and more measurement campaigns might be performed.

The project is also engaging high-school students in a school-year long Action Learning Lab, meant to to brainstorm ideas on reducing food waste, aiming to foster sustainable habits among youth. The ALL proceeds in rounds and the students, currently at their second stage have built prototypes of products to reduce waste on plate,  together with operating models to reduce waste in canteens and improve reporting of surplus.

The FOOD-RULES project utilizes an environmental dashboard, provided by the BringTheFood app, to track and visualize the social, economic, and environmental impacts of food donations, including metrics such as CO2 emissions saved and water conserved.  Further details and updates on FOOD-RULES can be accessed through the project’s website, available at: https://reducefoodprint.org/food-rules and the platform website, avaiable at https://bringfood.org/.