How the IT sector helps the world throw less food

In recent years, many IT companies have turned their offices into comfortable spaces where you can work and relax. Catering staff is a significant part of this comfort, but in fact this topic is not so simple. After all, corporate canteens contribute to a third of the food reserves, which now, according to the UN, are in the trash. We’ll tell you how the technology sector helps to fight this and what each of us can do.


A photo – Alexander Schimmeck – Unsplash

Silicon Valley and responsible cooking

At Google, Juul, LinkedIn and many other well-known services, sometimes former chefs of the most fashionable restaurants work. It is easy for large companies to lure them by offering the best pay for a much more relaxed job. Authorities even thought to ban startups to open their own cafes so that employees dine in third-party establishments and save restaurateurs from bankruptcy. This idea in the end not received continuation.

Many residents of Silicon Valley and its environs are unhappy that some of the dishes from the corporate menu are unclaimed. Both volunteers and creators of commercial projects are trying to change things.

Food sharing – for a reasonable order of food

The practice of responsible attitude to products is called “food sharing” (literally – “food exchange”). Its supporters come together in communities to exchange expired food or unnecessary food. Prior to the advent of social networks, such initiatives were launched by charities that took food from restaurants, cafes, and shops. Today in many large cities there are online groups where such ads are posted by private users.

In San Francisco, members of the association Food runners companies go round every day to pick up the food they have left and hand it over to those in need. They drop in shops, restaurants, hospitals, but most of the activists get food from high-tech firms. By according to One of the drivers of Food Runners, the business does not want to annoy employees with the lack of any dishes, so the cooks are prepared with a large margin. Volunteers transport products from corporate kitchens to churches, veteran homes, and poor neighborhoods. Thus, they save 17 tons of food per week.


A photo – Michael browning – Unsplash

According to activists, some companies apologize to them for not being able to give too much. But this is good – it means that the organization has learned effective cooking. In the case of a large corporation, this can mean a really noticeable effect. For example, on Google reportedthat reorganization of processes in the kitchen allowed them to save more than 2700 tons of food in five years. To achieve this result, the company was just enough to train their chefs to track how many products they use. In such conditions, creative thinking is included – for example, you can make a salad with pasta or knead the cut pieces of bananas in the pancake dough. As a result, fewer products are sent to the landfill, the corporation saves money, and employees receive new, original dishes.

Why is all this so important?

The problem of discarded food concerns not only moral issues, although one should not forget that the world is starving more than 820 million people, and every year this figure is only growing. Food waste provides a significant share of methane emissions. According to environmentalists, rotting in landfills gives the same effect as 37 million cars.

In developed countries, the topic of responsible lifestyle has already gained sufficient momentum for commercial organizations to take up. One of the first was the German Foodsharing.de, which launched in 2012 as a crowdfunding project. Now it unites more than 200,000 users in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and other European countries.

Other activists followed this project – now food sharing apps receive multimillion-dollar investments. In fact, these are small social networks that connect catering establishments and users. This ecosystem includes large restaurants, cafes, and even microsnacks where you can get homemade food. The main goal is the same – to achieve waste-free production. But, of course, such applications can also help businesses attract additional audiences.

And what about Russia?

The problem of unclaimed food is also relevant for our country. According to RAEC studyEvery year in Russia 17 million tons of food waste are produced, and in money these losses amount to more than 1.6 billion rubles. Analysts emphasize that the discarded products would more than be enough to feed all our fellow citizens below the poverty line.

Unfortunately, the movement for a responsible attitude to food is not developing as fast as we would like because of legislative restrictions. To protect Russians from spoiled goods, regulators prohibit shops and catering establishments just distribute expiring products. Instead, they need to be disposed of in the prescribed manner, and private initiatives lead businessmen to fines. If the store wants to give part of its products to charity, it needs to take into account the many subtleties of taxation, which often make such promotions meaningless.


A photo – nrd – Unsplash

Nevertheless, food sharing in Russia also exists, although not on such a scale as in some other countries. The main driving force is groups in social networks that organize themselves. in various cities of Russia. There are successors of the German food sharing business in our country – Foodsharing.ru. The organizers of all these communities cooperate with some stores and manufacturers, but they prefer not to mention their names again, so as not to attract the supervisors’ attention. Nevertheless, the scheme works – as practice shows, food sharing services even allow eat for free, although for this, of course, you have to make some efforts.

To comply with all legal requirements, the organization must receive charitable status. The largest such association in Russia is food fund “Rus”, which has been operating since 2012. Its activists receive products from manufacturers, shops, and the public and pass them on to socially unprotected categories of citizens. The fund operates through other charitable organizations and state social services, and receives products from Mars International, Cargill, Billa, Danone, Procter & Gamble, Dixie and other large companies.

The further society develops, the more difficult it is to ignore hunger, poverty and environmental degradation. The food sharing movement perfectly demonstrates how responsible citizens can organize themselves to work together to deal even with such serious threats. And the high-tech sector, which aims to rid humanity of many problems, will certainly be at the forefront of these initiatives.


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