Alliance for the Reduction of Food Waste

By project CITISYSTEM

Published on 31 January 2025

Greece

About this good practice

The Alliance follows a crosscutting, multi-sector and multi-policy approach. Boroume, initiator and coordinator of the Alliance, is a non-profit organisation actively pursuing food waste prevention in Greece since 2012 (through awareness raising, educational programmes for school children, surplus food redistribution to charities). The Alliance is under the auspices of the Greek Ministry of Environment and Energy.
There is a broad representation of stakeholders comprising public authorities, individual food companies, trade associations covering all stages of the food value chain, civil society organisations, research and academia (more than 80 members in total).
These bodies, are undertaking actions that contribute to the following goals:
o information and awareness-raising on the extent and impact of food waste
o training and education for the prevention and reduction of food waste
o exchange of information and knowledge, and promotion and dissemination of GPs
o promoting research and innovation
o facilitating and promoting the donation of surplus food for public benefit
o formulating and implementing public policy to prevent and reduce food waste.
A key objective of the Alliance is to serve as a network for information and knowledge sharing, as well as the promotion of synergies. An example is the collaboration between the retailer AB Vassilopoulos and Harokopio University on the largest research project on food waste across the entire food value chain in Greece.

Resources needed

The operational funding is being provided by retailer AB Vassilopoulos (member of Ahold Delhaize Group) with an annual amount of EUR 26.000. From 2025 onwards the source of funding will also come from other Alliance members.

Evidence of success

The Alliance plays an important role as a principal consultation forum as regards the formulation and implementation of national public policy on food waste prevention. Upon extensive consultation among members, the Alliance elaborated and submitted proposals (amending current legislation, introducing new provisions) throughout the consultation process.
The annual reports showcase food waste prevention practices demonstrate a broadening of action undertaken towards the common target.

Potential for learning or transfer

Key learnings from the Alliance are:
o Funding is a key challenge for setting up a Voluntary Agreement (VA) and especially for carrying out joint, impactful projects, which is of primary importance in order to mobilise the cooperating parties to the VA.
o Ensuring a broad representation of different types of stakeholders is an important parameter in order to pursue actions towards food waste prevention that require cooperation across the entire food value chain.
o An engaged government and competent public authorities are crucial in order to promote a supportive legislative and regulatory framework.
Every action that limits food waste is of great importance. Thus this good practice could be applied by other such authorities. The Alliance is directly supervised by the Greek Ministry of Environment and Energy. So other high level policy bodies could adopt such a good practice on regional/national level.