Strategic support for food surplus redistribution in Slovenia

By project CITISYSTEM

Published on 21 May 2025

Slovenia

About this good practice

Food waste is a significant issue in Europe and Slovenia is no exception. Among the types of food waste, food surplus is particularly egregious, considering the food is fit for human consumption and often even still packaged.

In 2017, Slovenia changed its law on agriculture to facilitate donations of surplus food from supermarket chains and other food providers. These were already partly motivated to donate, since it reduces their waste disposal costs and improves their image, but the law made it even more enticing — the donated food was free of VAT charges.

On the other side of things, charities have always been in need of food for the vulnerable groups they help, but since they’re volunteer based, they have limited capacity to take up food surplus in a regular and timely manner.

To reduce the burden and facilitate more surplus redistribution, the law enabled the competent ministry to create a yearly grant that covers technical gear needed for redistribution, e.g., various items for transportation, storage and even cooking. From 2026, two other key categories will be included: fuel and cleaning supplies. In the first years, it also organized HACCP trainings.

Resources needed

The yearly calls for proposals have had a budget in the range of 50-70,000 €.

Evidence of success

Financial support to actors implementing food surplus redistribution is key for that to happen at scale. Even if the law mandated producers to donate surplus food to charities, they simply would not have the capacity to handle it. In 2024, over 6,100 volunteer hours were spent working on redistribution. The real evidence of success is the amount
redistributed — around 2,000 tonnes of food each year, helping 3-4,000 people.

Potential for learning or transfer

Since it is a very cost-effective measure — just consider the amount of food surplus saved, additional volunteer effort activated, and people helped — providing the enabling conditions for charities in this space to thrive would easily be transposed to other national or regional contexts.