From 24 to 26 May, FEBA invited Food Bank representatives to Dublin to participate in the Data Collection YEAR-3 Mid-Term Summit organised together with FoodCloud (FEBA Member in Ireland).
The meeting was opened with some introductory remarks delivered by Rikke Karlsson (DG SANTE, European Commission) who underscored the importance of collecting quantitative and qualitative information for the successful implementation of EU policies on food loss and waste. Following that, the state-of-the-art of FEBA’s Data Collection project was focused on, recapping, in particular, the achievements during the first half of 2023. Jonathan Bennet (General Mills) highlighted in a video message the point of view of a company as regards the relevance of gathering reliable and coherent data before FEBA took the floor to present the aggregated impact of the network in 2022.
The objective of the second day of the summit was to zoom in on best practice examples of FEBA Members concerning the digitalisation of their operations. Nine case studies have been presented by attendees from Albania, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Ireland, the Netherlands, and Serbia, who introduced the systems used and provided details about the characteristics, the entry, and the dissemination of data collected as well as outlined related challenges and opportunities. Moreover, the participants learned about the endeavours of FoodCloud to quantify the environmental and social impact of the Food Bank’s activities and discussed the relevance of doing so.
Finally, a visit to the FoodCloud hub enabled the meeting attendees to learn how warehouse data can be captured in reality.
