D5.4 Sustainability strategy EU Food Waste Associations

The CHORIZO project aims to act as a catalyst for systemic change in how food loss and waste (FLW) are understood, addressed, and reduced across the food chain. By linking social norms, consumer behaviour, and decision-making processes of food chain actors, CHORIZO has developed tools, data resources, and recommendations that provide concrete solutions for stakeholders at multiple levels. This document constitutes the deliverable D5.4 Sustainability Strategy: EU Food Waste Associations from WP5 on “Innovation upscaling” and has been prepared by FIAB. The sustainability strategy focuses on EU Food Waste Associations (FWAs), recognizing their role as multipliers capable of embedding project results into upcoming programmes, projects, national initiatives, and industry practices.
The term EU Food Waste Association usually refers to any association, network, or organization within the European Union that focuses on food loss and waste (FLW). These can be NGOs, industry associations, research networks, or expert groups working to reduce FLW.
Our vision is to strengthen the role of FWAs as key enablers in the transition towards zero food waste. By building strong and long-lasting collaborations, the project ensures that its outputs—guides, training materials, behavioural tools, the DataHub, and practice abstracts—do not remain static deliverables, but become active resources shaping the future of food systems in Europe.
To effectively engage with FWAs across the EU, FIAB developed a step-by-step roadmap that outlines an outreach strategy and associated recommendations for how the EU FWA’s can swiftly disseminate the project’s outputs. The roadmap includes: Identify key associations through targeted research, prioritizing them based on relevance and regional impact; Establish relationships to present CHORIZO outputs, aiming to build collaborative relationships; Follow-up to ensure consistent engagement and adaptability throughout the process.
The adoption of CHORIZO outputs by FWAs ensures that knowledge and solutions are diffused across diverse stakeholder groups, from NGOs and food banks to industry representatives and ministries. The top-level recommendations shared are focused on: (I) Integration of evidence-based behavioural insights into FWA programmes to improve consumer and business engagement with food waste reduction; (II) Incorporation of project outputs (DataHub, capacity building programmes, evaluation of interventions) into the ongoing communication, training, and policy activities of FWAs; (III) Tailored dissemination approaches that respect the nature of each association—ranging from direct sharing with members and committees, to uploading content on websites, to embedding results in databases for future use; and (IV) Promotion of inter-project collaboration through European networks ensuring synergies with other initiatives.
By leveraging the EU Food Loss and Waste Prevention Hub, FoodDrinkEurope, the EU Platform on FLW, EIP-AGRI, ICLEI, and national ministries, the project’s results reach not only the immediate partners but also a wider European community of practice, and the project ensures lasting influence on European food waste policies, practices, and cultural norms, accelerating progress towards the shared vision of zero food waste.