Europe discards nearly 60 million tonnes of food every year — a loss worth over €130 billion and responsible for almost 10% of global emissions. From cargo bike recovery fleets to AI systems that predict waste before it happens, new solutions are reshaping how cities and canteens respond. Because as experts remind us, “the redistribution of leftover produce is not charity — it is about the right to food.”

Each European citizen produces more than 132 kg of food waste every year — adding up to almost 60 million tonnes across the EU. A true mountain of discarded food: enough to form a cube taller than the Eiffel Tower and to fill 6,500 trucks every single day, which, lined up one after the other, would almost circle the planet. Over €130 billion in market value goes literally to waste — and, according to UN estimates, food loss and waste account for nearly 10% of annual global greenhouse gas emissions, almost five times those from the aviation sector. In its official policy position, the European Commission acknowledged that “being more efficient will save money and food for human consumption, and lower the environmental impact of food production and consumption.” Hence, the ambitious commitment to halving food waste by 2030. But reaching that target also hinges on grassroots action and on cities willing to lead the way.

Among the most proactive is Milan. Ten years ago, the city launched the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact, an international agreement now endorsed by more than 300 cities worldwide to develop sustainable, inclusive and resilient food systems. Today, the city is strengthening its food recovery and redistribution system, extending it to several school canteens. Naima Comotti is project lead for surplus-food recovery at the social enterprise Magma SRL and co-founder of SO.DE Social-Delivery — an “ethical social delivery” service born during the Covid pandemic and staffed by a workforce where almost one third is made up of people re-entering the job market. “The municipality entrusted us with the logistics trial, and we followed the entire process. Then we selected the schools to involve, implemented the recovery phase, monitored quantities and identified the redistribution network that would receive the surplus food,” says Comotti. The initiative is called CARE (Cargo bike Action for Rescuing Edibles), because all recovery and delivery operations rely on a fleet of cargo bikes capable of transporting up to 100 kg of food.

Developed within CULTIVATE, an EU project aimed at supporting sustainable and resilient food-sharing initiatives, CARE was tested through an action plan between February and June 2025 in two phases. “In the first, we fine-tuned the routes, involved 10 schools and, based on their waste history, tested the quantities to be recovered. In the second, we extended the service to eight more schools and built a network of about 12 distribution points — both fixed and rotating depending on the day — including charity canteens, tenant committees and non-profit associations,” adds Comotti.

Although restrictions on cooked or perishable foods meant CARE could only recover bread and fruit, it still collected three tonnes of food during its pilot phase alone. Yet, its real impact cannot be measured in kilos alone. “There is certainly hidden poverty in Europe, especially in urban areas, which means thousands of people cannot afford healthy, varied and high-quality food,” observes Irene Fabricci, Sustainable Food Systems Expert at ICLEI, the network of European cities that led the action plan (*) behind the CARE initiative. “But the idea underlying these food sharing initiatives is to imagine an alternative food system that does not treat food only as a commodity, but also highlights its social value as something to be shared.”

If food waste recovery and social cohesion are essential parts of the equation, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has also stressed the urgency of “stronger partnerships, investments and smart supply-chain management to reduce food loss and waste along the entire chain.” Acting upstream — and across the entire distribution chain — became clear to Massimiliano Carraro as the right approach when he saw firsthand the scale of waste in the canteen of the company he worked for in Italy’s Treviso province. An environmental engineer by training, he eventually said “Enough!” and, together with Stefania Malfatti, founded Behavix!, a start-up that now provides a high-tech tool capable of reducing waste in corporate canteens by almost 40% in just a few months. “What remains on the plates is essentially the reflection of a misalignment between demand and supply,” notes Carraro. That sparked his idea to better determine consumer demand because, he argues, “by doing so, processes are optimised and waste is reduced upstream along the entire distribution and supply chain.”

Together with support from the EU-funded Reduce project, advanced technology has been crucial. “We monitored waste in the canteen at San Bortolo Hospital in Vicenza using computer-vision software and a camera pointed at the conveyor belt where trays were placed after meals. The camera captured the images and, through an algorithm, classified the contents and amount of leftovers on the plates,” he recounts. The result is two tools now available for collective catering companies managing university and corporate canteens across Italy: a web app and a more sophisticated system called Be-Pro. “It’s a monitoring system that not only quantifies food waste but also analyses its causes. Based on parameters specific to each context — such as user population and menus — and through the integration of artificial-intelligence algorithms, it allows users to estimate the reasons behind waste and to plan targeted interventions to prevent it,” adds Carraro.

Though they intervene at different stages of the food-waste chain, Behavix and SO.DE Social-Delivery share a common feature: success is pushing both to scale up. Carraro’s company is planning to expand across Europe and offer its services to chain restaurants as well. In Milan, meanwhile, CARE has already inspired similar initiatives. “We didn’t just provide a delivery service — we offered coaching to pass on our experience and spread the principles of ethical delivery,” points out Comotti. “Following our pilot, three organisations decided to replicate it on a smaller scale in other districts and in other school canteens, with our support.”

Yet significant obstacles remain — including what Carraro calls a “cultural factor.”
“Some collective catering operators treat food waste as collateral damage, to be accepted and swept under the rug,” he says. “But we must remember it’s a highly significant issue: across the food supply chain, it corresponds to an enormous amount of emissions, even if less visible than the smog from our cars.” And while organisations working on food surplus redistribution are often constrained by legislation that defines donor responsibilities or restricts the types of foods that can be recovered, Fabricci also points to limits arising from social norms. “Sometimes shame prevents exactly those who need it most from accepting this kind of support, because we are conditioned to believe that the inability to access food is a personal failure. There is therefore a narrative that must change: the redistribution of surplus food is not charity — it is about the right to food,” she concludes.

(*) The action plan is a strategic effort led by ICLEI and collaboratively developed by all Food Sharing Initiatives (FSIs) involved in CULTIVATE. The purpose of these 12-month action plans is to foster innovation within each organisation by establishing SMART objectives and outlining detailed tasks intended for testing and replication within each FSI as part of the CULTIVATE project.


Article by Diego Giuliani

Photo credits: @SO.DE Social Delivery