Under the authority of the Salvation Army, the project 'Food Saving and Food Usage in Focus' officially started on Wednesday, 9 September. Wageningen University and Research Centre is participating in the project. The project's goal is to achieve an optimal matching of input and output, so that surplus, qualitatively good food from the food industry can be used for the thousands of meals that the Salvation Army distributes daily. One of Wageningen's job within the project is to gather information and then to model it into a system.
In 'Food Saving and Food Usage in Focus', Wageningen UR is focusing on:
- chain analysis: what does the chain look like?
- taking inventory of (potential) residual streams
- matching (both in modelling and in practice) the demand side and the supply side. The supply side is the amount of meals to be delivered and the supply side is both the amount of free products offered and the additional products that have to be bought commercially.
One of the focus areas of Wageningen UR is sustainable food chains. For quite awhile now, cutting back on food waste has been continuously worked on both in research and in national and international projects. The Salvation Army's plans closely connect both to Minister Verburg's policy to cut back on food waste and also to one of Wageningen UR's focus areas. The Minister of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality, in collaboration with the Salvation Army and a few other partners, is financing this project.
Other participating parties are INHolland, the Knowledge Centre for Society and Religion Foundation (Stichting Kenniscentrum Maatschappij en Religie), the Chain Coach (Ketencoach) and supply companies and institutions that purchase supplies.