 Good morning. Good evening to everybody. Welcome to the webinar that is hosted by FAO on food waste prevention in times of crisis. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought undoubtedly a crisis at many levels, including on our food systems. Unfortunately, the crisis on our food system highlighted many of the fragilities that we have to face now and weaknesses. So this was like a wake up call underneath to address disruptions in the production and distribution of food, as well as on access. Therefore, concept that multi-actor actions are required globally to maximize the use of food that is produced, that is transported and distributed, and it is accessed by consumers worldwide, including in our region. Now mitigating the severe impacts of COVID-19 pandemic and the response measures will require collaborative and innovative approaches. The webinar will bring together experts from different sectors to share their firsthand experience and discuss solutions and practices that may be adopted to prevent and reduce food waste at the different stages of the food supply chain. In this unprecedented situation, of course, however, many of the messages that we are going to receive today are equally valid also after we are going to deal with the pandemic. Before starting, please allow me to take a note of some technical information on the arrangements of the meeting. The language options are English and Russian interpretation. You can switch language by clicking on the small globe icon at the bottom of your screen. We are expecting your questions and comments. We are welcome your contribution for this. Please use the question and answer box at the bottom of your screen. Now we are going to answer either directly or in writing. Please indicate your name and the organization that you represent when you are going to address your question. The webinar is being recorded and broadcasted as well on YouTube. Now, please allow me to introduce the video for the webinar, after which we can start with the first speaker, Robert Van Otterdijk. I think we already had the video, right? So it's now my turn to speak. Good morning, everybody. I'm very happy to be here and to welcome you all to this webinar on food waste in times of crisis. I should say that already since almost 10 years ago, the Safe Food Initiative of FEO, the global initiative on food loss and waste reduction in collaboration with public and private sector partners, took an active approach towards reduction of food waste in addition to the old food loss program that FEO already was implementing for many decades or so. We did that especially in collaboration with the EU projects, fusions and later refresh. And one of the most important topics to address food waste was the recovery and redistribution of surplus food. Meaning that food, which is at the risk to get wasted but which is not wasted yet, will be recovered and saved from being wasted and redistributed to people to eat. So all kinds of different channels. For this concept, we have developed a few elaborative policies and implemented these in different programs in the regions where FEO is working. And it is clearly focusing on the food supply chain approach and the problems that exist there to match supply with demand. And this problem has always been there in any food supply chain, but now in the time of the COVID-19 pandemic, we see that many food supply chains have been distorted and disrupted because of the restrictive measures implemented to fight the spread of the disease. And then we can think for instance of closing of the Horeca hotel restaurant catering in many countries, making that the suppliers of food products to these Horeca establishments now are left with surplus food waste they can't sell anymore, especially at farm level, we have direct supply to this sector. Then in many cases, exports have been suspended. And at the consumer level, we can see that because of the COVID pandemic, the whole economy has collapsed and many people have lost their jobs in all kinds of businesses, making, causing a situation that many consumers, especially in lower middle income countries, are reaching the poverty line and becoming food insecure. In that way, they are getting more dependent on charity or food banks to get to their basic needs in terms of food supply. Then at farmer level, apart from the loss of markets, you can also see that because of the pandemic, immigration labour has been suspended, because many of these farms rely on immigrant labour, seasonal labour to harvest the crops, but also in the processing industry, this type of labour is required. And that is now also a problem, besides that many of these industries also had to close down, etc. And as a longer term spin-off, we may notice that because of the pandemic and the economic collapse, many, especially small and medium skilled businesses in the food supply chains, like restaurants, like food processors, like small retailers, will go bankrupt. And therefore it will take a long time for, after the pandemic has gone, it will take a long time before the economy is recovering and the food supply chains start operating and functioning well. And therefore it is more than ever an opportunity to establish online platforms where suppliers and users or buyers of food products can find each other and find alternative outlets for the food products and find alternative sources for their supply so that we fix as much as possible this disrupted food supply chains and reduce the food waste that would be the consequence of that. So we have been working with some other organisations on a general project proposal for that, which is now in the making, which we hope to implement as soon as possible at national level in a number of countries. And therefore I'm very happy that in this webinar now we are going to address particularly this type of issues that are at stake. And I would be very grateful to all the panelists and the speakers that are going to share their experience and their plans and activities with us. Thank you very much. The floor is back to Camelia, I think. Thank you very much, Robert. Indeed, you have underlined many of the difficulties that the food supply chain actors face as well as consumers face and accessing the food from the food supply chain. I would like to highlight the medium and small size food services that you have highlighted that face indeed bankruptcy, for instance, in many of the cases we have seen this happening, as well as recovery and redistribution from other actors in the food supply chain. So in the face of this challenge that COVID has highlighted and has so much underscored that we need to face, whether we are ready or not, there are indeed some solutions. You have mentioned recovery and distribution. You have mentioned how consumers can also engage in actions and have mentioned that platforms, online platforms such as the project that FAO would like to launch in the region and engage with at country level are also available. So without further ado, I would like to introduce the first keynote speaker, Angela Frigo. She is the Secretary-General of the European Food Banks Federation. Now the European Food Banks Federation represents 430 food banks in 29 European countries. Angela will kindly provide an overview on how the COVID pandemic has impacted FIBA's activities, the challenges and successes that FIBA has registered in the last year, and I would like to give the floor now to Angela. Thank you very much, Angela. The floor is yours. Thank you very much, Camilla, for your kind introduction and I would like also to thank you for this invitation. So I will share my presentation on the screen and just give me a feedback that it's working. Okay. Okay, perfect. Thank you very much. So as Camilla said, I will give you a very quick overview about the European Food Banks Federation and then I will focus my speech on the impact of COVID on the activity of our members. So as she said, we represent, well, the organization was based, was established in 1986. We are currently based in Brussels, and we represent and support 29 members across Europe. And the mission of food banks is double. So on one hand, we prevent food waste through the recovery and redistribution of edible and safe surplus food. So food, as it was said, that it's perfectly edible and that's for many different reasons cannot be sold to the final consumer. And thanks to the activity. So thanks to recovery and redistribution of food banks, it's saved from becoming food waste. And on the other hand, so that the second, let's say, a mission of the food banks is to redistribute this food to charities supporting people in need. And in this way, we also try to contribute to food waste to food insecurity reduction, providing a support to thousands of charities, providing food to millions of vulnerable people and families in Europe. And here I will show you the impact of the activity of our members in 2019. And I think that this is important because then we will see the difference between 2019 and 2020. So as you can see, we represent a network of 430 food banks. And last year they redistributed more than 700,000 tons of food. And 70% of this food is surplus food. So it's coming from the whole food supply chain from agriculture, from food and drink manufacturers from the distribution sector and also from the food service. And then there is also food coming from the fund for European aid to the most deprived from food collections. So it's food which is donated by citizens. And also fruit and vegetables which are withdrawn from the market within the common agricultural policy in order to stabilize the prices. Again, 70% of the total amount of food that was redistributed last year was surplus food. And it's equivalent to 4.2 million daily meals. And then the food was redistributed to more than 45,000 charities. And charities are really, and there is a variety of charities, so like soup kitchens but also food pantries shelters for homeless people, communities for disabled people or for families. And these charities support nine well support it last year 9.5 million deprived people. Another element that I would like to highlight is that our activity, we are no profit organizations and our activity is possible thanks the involvement of a lot of volunteers. So in total we have more than 32,000 coworkers and 84% of them are volunteers. So this is the picture of last year, and then coming to this year and the impact of the COVID on our organization. So what we have done as European food banks Federation, we have tried to support as much as possible our members. And we have done this also monitoring and assessing the evolution and the impact of the of the pandemic on their daily activity. And we conducted several surveys, and we also released some reports that are available on our website for more information. And I will give you some highlights, especially as regards the challenges that and some of these challenges were already mentioned also by Robert at the beginning, but also some solutions and also what are the future. Let's say, what is the future outlook for our activity. So the first thing that I would like to stress is that food banks have always been up and running. They have never closed, even during the lockdowns. We have just a few exceptions in some countries in order to avoid the contact with people and the spread of the pandemic, but otherwise the food banks has always remained open. And they have faced an increased demand for food. So at European level we are recording a 30% increase of food demand. And the range goes from 6% up to 90% in the different countries. And here you can see also a map with the different countries. And it's true that this is a new poverty. And as it was said before, there are a lot of people who have lost their job due to the due to the crisis due to the pandemic, but also many families with children. So families who were relying on schools for the meals of their children and also a lot of elderly people who are living alone and then due to the pandemic and to social distancing are feeling even more the loneliness and the fact that they are living alone. So this is again a new kind of poverty that was not existing just a few months ago at the beginning of the year. And it has a real impact on our community. Then another element and another challenge that was faced by our food banks was that they had to adapt their operations very quickly in order to respond to the evolution of the pandemic. And most of our members. So at the beginning there was really a fluctuation of the food, of the supply of food, because as it was said also before, well, food and drink manufacturers but also the distribution sectors had to reorganize their internal procedures. They were affected especially supermarkets by panic buying. So some of our traditional donors had no available surplus food for us at the beginning of the pandemic, especially in the first wave. But at the same time we were contacted by many restaurants and by the food service sector because they had due to the fact that they were forced to close the restaurants they had a lot of available surplus food. But as you can imagine, this is a totally different logistics, because it meant to recover to pick up food from thousands of different locations. And in most of the cases, it's, it was chilled and frozen food with a very short expiry shelf life. And especially in a period where restrictions were in place. And so people couldn't move around as usual. And at the same time we also faced a shortage of volunteers because as I said, our activity is based on volunteers, but most of our volunteers are over 65. And so they were a group at risk to be affected by the pandemic. And last but not least we also faced a drop in financial resources because our members had unexpected expenses. So for example for buying the personal protective equipment for the volunteers and the employees. So this is, these are the challenges and I'll say that they were really, they had a real impact on our activity. But at the same time I would like to highlight that the food banks have expressed their full creativity and also professionalism. And I would like to give you just a few concrete examples from some countries that could be also replicated in other countries so that could be considered as an example. And I'm sure that then also our Hungarian member in the panel discussion later on will provide more examples. So, for example, we recovered the surplus food from the restaurants and the cafeterias of the European institutions in Brussels, when the offices were closed. Or, for example, in Belgium, the food banks were involved in the recovery of tons of potatoes from local farmers. In France, there were many online companies which decided to donate their food or soft drinks to the food banks. In Germany, there was also an awareness campaign to explain to the charities and also the final beneficiaries of the charities, the difference between the best before date and the used by date. Or in Lithuania, for example, the food banks invited the citizens to donate the food that was stockpiled during the lockdown, so that was purchased during the panic buying. Or in Italy, which was one of the most effective countries, the food bank increased the quantities of surplus food recover from catering companies due to their forced closures. A lot of fruit and vegetables were donated to the food banks in Netherlands or, for example, in Norway, the food bank decided to establish a new kitchen within the food bank within the warehouse where they have started to prepare meals for the charities so that in this way, then the redistribution for the charities and for people in need is easier because they can provide ready meals with a very good nutritional value. But also in Spain, for example, the food banks are redistributing rice which is produced with the coffee of the recycled capsule of some companies. And the last example that I would like to share with you is that some food banks decided also to rethink and to reorganize their activity, preparing the food parcels, the food banks for the charities, so that in this way it was easier than to reach the final beneficiaries. So these are just some very, I would say, concrete examples of the activity and how the activity has changed during the pandemic. And so some of the learnings, let's say that first of all we have showed evidence that the food banks can adapt and respond effectively to the needs of society. They have adapted their activity and they have been a reliable partner, well not only for the charities assisting people in need, but first of all for the full supply chain because they have provided a solution to food waste prevention during the pandemic. And so we think that the activity of the food banks should be really recognized as a part of the full supply chain of the full system and not just as one good option for a social purpose, but also technology and digital tools have been really important to support the activity. And for example, as European Food Banks Federation we have organized a lot of online meetings with our members and at the beginning we were a little bit afraid that digital tools were not so, well our members were not so familiar with digital tools but actually these kind of meetings have led us to close the gap and to have a regular dialogue with our members. And just the last comment that I would like to share is that, well unfortunately I'll say we are only at the beginning of the real crisis because well we know that we are experiencing an health emergency, especially right now, but for sure it's already evident the COVID-19, this crisis will have a long lasting effect on our society in terms of social impact and economic impact. So we will need to recover more food also in the future for more people. And here I would like just to share with you some pictures of our volunteers from different countries. Because really I think that they are the key element of our activity, so the activity is made possible thanks to the volunteers and the employees that are involved every day. But we have received a lot of support also from citizens, from businesses and also from public administrations. So really generosity has been a leverage to improve our activity. And last I would like to just to conclude saying that well all this is not enough because as I said and here you can see the figures of 2019 but unfortunately we are already experiencing a 30% increase in food demand. So we will need to recover more food and in order to support more people and in this way we will have also the possibility to prevent food waste from being generated. And so we need the help of everyone and I hope that well opportunities like the meeting of today, the webinar of today are really important because we can share information and we can also learn from each other. And we can find maybe new collaborations that could help us to reach this goal of preventing food waste and at the same time to support those are most in need. Thank you very much. Thank you very much indeed Angela for your great work. I would like to highlight now some of the points that stuck particularly for me and and I would say that overall the food banks have been very efficient in adapting as you have said as well. And this adaptation involved many aspects such as an optimization of your resources because the resources level drop and optimization of the operations and a way to reach out even more demand, a higher demand 30% higher in increase. So this increase in expansion had to be addressed somehow as you have also stated the logistics were a huge challenge for you for you also to adapt to different kind of suppliers such as food services restaurants in particular, as well as the way on how to support your operations through volunteers that have really played a role of, of managing the supply and the demand to date. So having to deal with both logistics and support of from volunteers in the same time, this kind of, let's say the double challenge you have faced has really let's say brought up the issue that you have also mentioned that in the future, because the poverty line dropped. So the more there are more and more people that want to access your, your food. So in the future, you will have to continue to address this challenge so it's not something that is going to go away anytime soon. Therefore, you have also mentioned some of the opportunities that countries have identified and implemented. I would like to highlight here in particular the awareness that was conducted in Germany for the use by and best before date. Indeed, awareness is a key aspect that consumers always have, let's say the need to be to be informed in a good way. This is an opportunity that Germany picked up quickly. In Italy, the catering surplus indeed from from food services was an issue that we have highlighted, and, and other countries as well have dealt with, and this is very important because it connects with how Norway dealt with the food banks operations by launching the kitchen. So while in Italy, you had to deal with food that was already prepared and at the level of the food supply chain so you had to recover it and redistribute it as quick as possible. In Norway, the food banks have adapted in a different way by launching the kitchen themselves and cooking the meals for their demand for their customers. So I would like to then conclude on your presentation saying that the food banks are working throughout the food supply chains. As you have also mentioned, they recover more than 70% of the products that they distribute is recovered food. So it's available at the food supply chain level. Therefore, I would say that there is room to actually consider even more closely with the food supply chain actors on how operations from food banks can continually support the consumers also after the pandemic has passed. Now I would like to pass the floor to Liliana Liliana. Anovati Jacob is the head of the agricultural unit of the United Nations Economic Commissions for Europe. She is responsible for sustainable food trade, food loss and waste quality infrastructure and trade standard. Now Liliana is going to focus her presentation today on the feed up at UN, a digital food loss and waste management system. This system is designed to trace and quantify food that is removed from the food supply chain and make it available for redistribution, donating further as well for processing. Now Liliana, you have the floor. Thank you very much for being here today with us. Thank you very much, Camelia. And I would like to call on the team to bring up my presentation. Thank you very much. Thank you. So as Camelia said, I'm with the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe based in Geneva. And we are not only looking obviously here at the crisis situation but also as was said by Angela, the situation beyond. Let me start with what was before. Next slide, please. And what happened in a very highly efficient country where I live in Switzerland? In a highly efficient country, great agriculture, great technology, we're still facing 2.6 million tons of food loss every year. You see the other numbers on the screen around 225,000 tons of this loss comes from agriculture. A lot of this could be avoided, but all this has consequences. Crisis or not, it impacts the economy. There are financial losses if you look at 600 million francs per year caused by avoidable losses. It causes social losses and obviously economic effects. Serious implications here as well for food security and obviously also for accelerating any kind of progress towards SDG 12.3. The big takeaway here is that food loss in the early and the pre-retail stage, a food loss that we have not looked into extensively in the past years remains massive, no matter where and which country we're talking about. Next slide, please. Quick example also on what happens at company level, just a quick example, 100 fully loaded standard trucks per year, 7.9 million lost every year, plus of course to that we have to add incineration costs. So already pre-crisis, we had sort of a little crisis going on here that was a bit hidden to all of us. Next slide, please. As Robert and Angela pointed out, the impact of the COVID-19 for once and for all showed us that we have distorted food supply chains and they were even more supported by this crisis, but come a drought, come a hurricane, come any other weather condition, the effect might be exactly the same. The various impacts on labor, on borders, on exports, on imports resulted in food surplus, in waste, and as we could see the food banks having to face a huge demand that we had never seen before. For 2021, the outlook is not great, the prognostic is not good, and we can certainly not count on any fantastic recovery hitting us in the coming month. Next slide, please. Angela pointed to the fact that we need to improve efficiency and we need to leverage on technology, and I think these are two very, very valid points and they lead me to what you see here in red, the tracing, the quantifying, the analyzing. If we do not know where this food leaves the supply chain, how much is left, who lets it leave it, and we cannot analyze this, we will always just work with little pieces of the puzzle, we will never have the full picture. Obviously, as Angela pointed out as well, and Camelia as well, we need to support a fast distribution, and this fast distribution means leveraging on technology. Whether the fast distribution happens for towards a charity, towards a food bank, or remains commercial, meaning towards processing or any other use that remains to be seen, but these two elements, they need to go together. And they obviously can help us handle the immediate effects of any kind of crisis, particularly this one obviously, but also rebuild a bit more with the aim of building more robust, more transparent, faster reacting supply chains. Next slide, please. And this is where we come from. We have created something we call feed up at UN. We have looked at these two components, namely systematic tracing of food loss and number two online distribution. Be this a marketplace, be this a food bank, whatever it is, a distribution that can happen fast. And all this we're doing why, because there's a lot of invisible food. Maybe the 158 participants to the seminar know about this food. Many, many others outside don't. So the food recovery and discovery via and distribution via alternative and flexible supply chains is very important. Activating what we call a business case, a distribution case, a supply chain case for this invisible food. Now, what am I talking about next slide please. The food supply chain is long feed up at UN, which is a blockchain supported system looks at all the food loss happening along this long supply chain. And it provides governments but also the private sector with intelligence with reports with analytics, and it will tell you how much you actually saved, because that is very important. Saved in terms of food, how many tons of food, how many kilos of food did we save, savings in terms of CO2 savings in terms of water resources and that brings me to something Angela pointed out before as well. Efficiency, very important, we need to improve efficiency. And that can only be done if we systematically measure, we generate data, we increase the efficiency, we plan, and we provide extension services that really make sense. Next slide please. Now with all the knowledge that comes from a blockchain enhanced system. We need to integrate that or we have the possibility to integrate it, we can keep it as a standalone tool, but we can integrate it into online marketplaces or distribution channels. You can see on the right hand side how many different distribution channels we could only think of this can be a hospitality sector. It can be NGOs, it can be food banks, charities, donations. It can also go towards new industries that are up and coming, but also processors. I mean just think of the drying of mangoes just think of, of juicing, whatever it is, there are different options and obviously at the very end integrate with biomass energy producers with compost. So sort of go into something more circular than we currently have. Next slide please. So the system itself is scalable. It's, it works for all countries. It's, we opted for a local use first, we can obviously then also go cross border. We can plug in existing systems we can plug in food banks charities, any kind of solutions for biomass and compost. We measure what I said is water use CO2 and resource other resource efficiency, which also means the food saved upcycling of food. But we also integrate transport solutions and transport solutions are extremely important if we want to end up with more efficiency and more efficient supply chains and faster reacting supply chains for perishable food. So it's basically linking missing data, missing food with missing buyers or miss missing consumers. And that would be our smart food loss system. Next slide please. Now it is an opportunity for success. It's an opportunity for success to feed the world and cared for the earth, because we fortified trace analyze big data. And big data are obviously the future big data is used to prevent to plan and to guide policy options, because even with a very cooperating private sector which is obviously needed strong strong partners to demarginize the marginalized the currently invisible food and give it a new life. We still need to complement this and add better infrastructure better logistics public private partnerships and adequate policies. So we think it is an opportunity for success is one ingredient and we hope it's going to be a successful one. Next slide please. And the reloading before loss actually becomes waste is for us very important in these times of crisis and maybe this crisis has helped us bring these solutions to the forefront. But it will help in the future as well and it is available and it is something that we should think of and really try to build these alternative supply chains based on available data and provide this data for better planning in the future. Next slide please. The secretariat has just shared with you an invitation to the lounge she went which takes place next Monday. I will stop with this and hand over to the next speaker. I very much welcome you on Monday the details have been shared and I look forward to demonstrate to you the actual tool next Monday. Thank you very much. Thank you very much indeed lineana for sharing with us on the feedback feed up at UN tool. I would like to just focus your attention and everybody's attention on on some key points. You mentioned traceability. So you mentioned to trace to quantify analyze for loss and waste. You have mentioned indeed that this is a global issue food waste so indeed countries are facing it whether their food systems are well organized or not and having access to resources financial or other or not. This is a global issue that we have to recognize its relevance and we are also dealing with the fact that food losses and waste have been before the COVID crisis and are going to also continue to be if we are not going to address them adequately also after. So indeed we need to work toward the more flexible food supply chain that can address food waste before it happens. So prevention is key. I would like to invite everybody to for for the part of that Dr. Lee's goodwin senior fellow and director of food loss and waste at the world resources is it is going to walk us through. Lee's is a champion of the UN sustainable development goal 12.3 and the chair of the long London waste recycling board, which brings together London's waste stakeholders and the range of partners to transform management of waste in the capital. Before joining the WRI the World Resources Institute as a senior fellow and director, at least held the position of CEO at the waste and resources action program wrap in the UK. Now the floor is your list. Thank you very much for for your participation in today's webinar. Thank you very much. And I'll just share my green with you. So I wanted to talk to you about collaboration. And I think both Angela and Lilliana have emphasised the importance of collaboration. And so this is about a piece of work that we've been doing under the Champions Initiative, which predates COVID but I think that the whole experience of COVID has brought it home really important how really important it is that we have good collaboration up and down the supply chain. So initially I'll just skip through a few slides. I mean, most of you will be aware of these figures, you know, the fact that we waste around a third, lose or waste around a third of all food. It costs a huge amount of money to the global economy. And it contributes massively to global greenhouse gas emissions. And if it indeed if it was a country it would be the third largest emitter after China and the United States. And at the same time, you know, we have this issue of malnourishment and hunger and as Angela has already talked about, you know, we've got, we've actually had probably had a growing problem in the last year and that is going to continue as we have continued with COVID-19 and trying to overcome the aftermath of that. And COVID-19 has really brought it home how the supply chains are complicated and fractured and they're not very effective. There have been some horrific pictures of, you know, milk being poured down the drains, crops being just plowed back into the fields, and this is all because the supply chains weren't working properly. I think that the whole COVID experience has told us that our food system is not very robust and we need to build it back in a way that makes it more robust and more resilient. Let me ask the fundamental question, why do we seek to reduce food loss and waste if the previous slides didn't already illustrate that massively enough, you know, there's, we need to be able to feed the growing population and we need to be able to feed hungry people now. We've got to protect natural resources, we are putting too much pressure on the world and we are having this massive impact on climate. And there's also of course the economic, it increases efficiency, it avoids unnecessary costs, and it helps economies and families and people to thrive. And of course then we have SDG 12.3, which is about halving global food waste at retail and consumer level and reducing loss along the production and supply chains. And for champions, this was set up to try to help make sure that 12.3 is achieved and we've set a very simple strategy which is basically target measure act, and, you know, setting a target sets your ambition and sets your overall goal and says it's important to you. If you measure, then you can actually have that information you've made informed decisions. And that's exactly what really how long was just talking about, you know, if you don't know where the problems are, how can you take action. So measurement is really important, and then taking action comes naturally from that. And within champions we, we looked at the business case for companies and therefore supply chains to take action. And we did this piece of work a few years ago and we looked across more than 700 companies, lots of business sites and lots of countries. And the median company got a 14 to one return on investment and we weren't talking about big investments either these were small simple steps that most organizations could take. So, you know you have to ask yourself why aren't more companies doing some of the really obvious things to reduce food loss and waste. I think a lot of it is down to awareness. But one of the other things is lack of collaboration up and down the supply chain lack of communication up and down the supply chain. So we then come to 10 by 20 by 30. This is an initiative to basically try to identify 10 really big companies from around the world, and ask them to engage with their top 20 suppliers to taking action on food loss and waste, and to achieving a halving of food loss and waste by 2030 so the 10 big companies their 20 suppliers and achieving the target by 2030. So we built on a model from on the right hand side you can see the companies who have been identified as the 10 in fact there are 11 of them but we'll pass over that one. But the idea was built on an initiative in a process that was tried by Tesco who who initially went out and worked with their suppliers. So by having 10 companies, all working with 1020 suppliers you actually start to get a huge multiplier effect, and you start to create a huge snowball of, of organizations throughout the world and which is exactly what we want to do. But it was built on Tesco working with its suppliers. And if we then multiply that up with the others. The idea the ask is that each of those 200 organizations adopts 12.3 for their own company. And they look all the way through their supply chain as well as just looking at at at themselves. And then they measure their, their food loss and waste, and they share the results. And a result as a result of that they take action. And what we've seen from certainly from the Tesco example and now increasingly from the others is that that whole process really promotes collaboration and communication up and down the supply chain because people understand, start to understand that a decision made in one point of the supply chain has impacts on on another part of the supply chain that they may have been blissfully aware of in the past. And this slide, the next two slides give you a very long list of the 200 companies but it's, it's just to show you the types of organizations and there's a whole mixture of large and small organizations in there. And what's really interesting is that some of these big ones like Unilever is on this list, for example, and Unilever is wanting to work with its entire supply chain. And this is done by 20 and those 20, then engaging with their supply chain as well we really do start to see massive progress, all the way through the supply chains back to the farm level. And this is my last slide really is just to sort of highlight the fact that this is, it's obviously gone down well it's, it's a good headline figure of the 200. I think it just sort of sets a standard and it says this whole approach of setting a target and setting ambition. And then measuring, because that really gives you the information to take action, and then taking action. But all of, all of this would not be possible without collaboration. And that's, that's my key message. So now I'll hand back to Kamu. Thank you very much, Lydia. Indeed, I think that what you have highlighted here the importance of collaboration. The importance of collaboration is key. Now, the 10 2030 initiatives highlights also the fact that we only have 10 years left for the 2030 agenda. So joint action and collaboration among other efforts will determine the success both for stronger supply chain, but also for the 2030 agenda, specifically for the 12.3 goal. I would like to thank now you, Liz, for for the presentation and to highlight this, this key point of collaboration, as well as for all the speakers. And without further ado, let me please give the floor to liana and about the jack up to moderate the panel discussion. The floor is your liana. Thank you very much. Thank you, Camelia. And thank you very much to all the speakers we've had before and obviously that includes myself. I don't know, quite an awkward situation but let me start with the second part, which is really focused on solutions and what actually happened during the crisis. We have heard about the food bank before food waste reduction under COVID happening via food banks we have heard that the United Nations is working on a solution. We have heard that the champions 12.3 and companies are taking initiatives. Now we would like to go more on to the ground. Let me introduce the panel which consists of three speakers three participants. This is Alan Ottelman's Alan Ottelman's is from is the program manager of impact impact is a initiative of the city of Amsterdam with the aim which has the aim of fostering impact entrepreneurship and is in my opinion a great example of how this is how the public sector can effectively engage with the private sector and come up with innovative inclusive new solutions. We also have Irina Kuzmina Irina Kuzmina is the charity programs manager at X five retail group in Russia. She is known for working very closely with the food bank are us food bank Ross. They have jointly developed actually a food collection platform or food collection donation platform, and a mobile app where volunteers can sign up. So very interesting how here the private sector and charities work together. And then last but not least we have bolage chair bolage chair is the president of the Hungarian food bank association he was a founding member 15 years ago of this food bank. And we're very curious to hear how hungry dealt with the situation how his food bank had to adapt to the new situation. Now, let me ask the first question to Alan. Alan. The global crisis has obviously amplified the pressure on the food systems. On the other hand, as I had also pointed out in my presentation, it did open and it did get open the gate for innovative new solutions doing things differently. I was wondering if you could highlight some positive developments that you experienced on how business connected and how they addressed the issue of food waste during the past six months. Alan. Thank you. Yes, it will be my pleasure to do that because actually, you know, if there's one thing that I've seen and I still see today actually the past six months and up until today I see a great resilience and also innovative spirit amongst impact enterprises, especially also the ones active in the food waste societal challenge. I see that they collaborate with each other, they pivot their business models, they find new ways to reach their customers. They even find new customers in these, well, you know, very difficult times. It stems me also hopeful and I admire that they are so agile, actually, and to give you a few examples. There was a direct to consumer food box developed within or in Amsterdam. It is called support your locals, and it also offered surplus food to consumers in a direct way. And this initiative materialized into into a national platform so this is one of the examples how food waste enterprises are very resilient. As Amsterdam impact we powered a research which has been done by impact of Amsterdam, one of our partners that we collaborate with and they tried to, you know, get a grip or an idea of what are the consequences of COVID-19 for food waste enterprises. And they hosted a webinar and there you can see that also impact enterprises active in food also connect to their stakeholders. So to give you another concrete example, too good to go, they partnered with the slow food youth movement within 14 days they managed to pile up in a warehouse 20,000 kilograms of potatoes, and then they sold them within a few hours. So I think these are all signs you know that people collaborate know how to find each other across sectors if you if you will. I think it also has to do with the fact that food waste enterprises focus on solving an SDG like a societal challenge which gives them a different perspective. And I feel that as a municipality we are there. I mean, it's our core business so to say to support these these developments and also transition to a sustainable food food system. And to give you a small example, we focus also on by social activities so market access. And during this difficult COVID times we also informed consumers that if and when they definitely want to buy something because they need it, they should spend their dime at food waste enterprises. So yeah, I'm hopeful it's a very difficult time but I see signs of resilience. Thanks much Ellen I fully agree the spirit of doing things differently is definitely a great takeaway from this crisis and I hope it will mark also 2021 and the years to come. COVID was a tipping point for COVID was a trigger and it's very very nice to hear how fast, particularly you as a municipality and being really at the forefront of the entire public sector. Could react and could encourage and help people who were out to invent something new and do things differently. I was wondering if Irina could also tell us how her company adapted X5 is has been cooperating with the food banks for for many years, and they for for has have been helping to set it up. Has COVID changed anything in terms of cooperation with the food banks. How did your company adapt. Irina. Thank you Lillian. Hello. It was very nice to take your invitation to the webinar. Indeed, we have been working with the food banks for five years. In fact, our food bank is the only one in the country. As far as I understand, there is a whole association in Europe. We have such a big country and a wonderful food bank that covers our entire large spatial geography. We cooperate in the direction of food drive. Everyone probably understands, but for listeners who are not so immersed in the topic, I will explain. Volunteers of the food bank come to the store and conduct a collection of fun on the territory of the free tail. Thus, we have already helped 62 thousand families and was collected 559 tons of fun. In addition, each time after each collection, our company adds 30% to the collected. That is, we also participate in their product donations. Our special feature is that the help we provide is a full set in which there are food banks and protein products. In general, the whole set of food banks and carbohydrates that a person needs. With the pandemic, of course, we did not have the opportunity to carry out offline events. We used our online infrastructure, we have a site and we have a mobile application in which we activated our collection of fun. In fact, people donate money, then the food bank buys products for the collected donations and we also add 30% to the collected. Also, as Alice already said, we are a large business that can communicate with suppliers. We attracted approximately 20 large companies and Russian and international, which also added their own production, so that the basket remained diverse. In addition, there were sweets, vegetable chemistry and protein products, including. Also, the food bank has become a question where to buy these products. People have donated money on the site and mobile applications. Before, the food bank did not have an active purchase experience. In our company, such a direction was opened. Earlier, we did not have an active purchase experience. Now, for the food bank, we make such an exception and thus help. Let me go now to Balazs and someone who really works with the food banks and I was wondering if Balazs could tell us how they coped with the situation. How did they have to adapt their business model, their mode of operation to this pandemic and to this exceptional situation? Balazs, the floor is yours. Thank you. Angela has already mentioned a lot of things about what food banks did during the epidemic period. I think also for Hungary, the key word is adaptation. We have to be very flexible. We also experience a significant increase on the side of the demand. We work with 400 charities who are serving about 300,000 people in Hungary. The need received from them is constantly increasing and especially the winter, which is coming now. People will have even less jobs because there won't even be temporary opportunities in the agricultural sector. Whereas the family costs will be higher because of the heating, so we experience an even worse situation in the coming months. On the other hand, we also experience the volatility on the supply side. Also the closing down of the food service sector, but we also experience volatility in the retail sector. For example, the Easter period was an unexpectedly low retail level in Hungary as for the consumer side, which resulted for the food banks and an unexpectedly high supply on the food surplus side. Our warehouses were full in April and May because of food service and also because of other volatilities. We had to adapt and be very flexible in the logistics. We operate in a two-parallel logistics way. We have centralized logistics where goods are coming through central warehouses or regional warehouses. We also have a decentralized way where our charity partners directly go to the suppliers. We also had to mix these channels and change these channels. Sometimes we were also involving the suppliers into our logistics chain, so where our warehouses were full, we asked the suppliers to keep and directly distribute it to the charity partners. Luckily, we can say that we didn't have to decline any offers from suppliers. We could distribute everything and we hope to be able to do so. I'm really proud of our Imanal volunteers that could do it. I hope and I wish that in the coming second wave we can do so as well. Thanks so much, Balazs. Yes, here as well, faced with new challenges and having to come up with new solutions. I really commend you how the food banks could adapt that well to, as you said, volatile supply and huge demand. Let me just take up on doing things differently and how these lessons learned can be carried over into the future. Ellen, if I may turn back to you. In your experience, what do you think, how could the different stakeholder work together better to achieve more resilient food systems also in the future? What do you think the various roles would be? Thank you. I think collaboration and co-creation is key. Not only collaboration as such, but from an equal footing as equal partners. I think that is also a thing that is very, very important. In my opinion is that either if you are an investor or you are a civil servant or you are working at a university, we all need to stick together to improve the situation. And in some intact, we practice what we preach. We collaborate with different stakeholders, a lot of different stakeholders to give you an example how we also adapted our own policy program within the COVID situation. We took the initiative to develop a program specifically for impact enterprises to support them during this COVID crisis. But also to make sure that they get out of this situation even stronger than before. So we tailor made a program to support also food waste enterprises. We collaborate with a charity, the Goldsmithing Foundation. And these group of enterprises are supported in different ways. They get coaching and that sort of things in all kinds of important topics. Next to that we thought, you know, this is focused on the more mature scale up enterprises. Let us also offer something to the entire ecosystem. So also startup food waste enterprises can use these masterclasses. We will offer a series of masterclasses. So these are examples of how we try to support and also collaborate with all kinds of partners. I have an endless list of, you know, examples of what we do, but maybe I will leave it to this. Thank you very much, Alan. We certainly won't forget you as a source of information and lessons learned because, as I said, municipalities are really at the forefront and they're really exposed in these situations. And I really look forward to engaging even from the United Nations point of view, much more with you and the municipalities and the cities because I think this is where a lot of the solutions and a lot of the innovative thinking takes place. And I think it's very important that we come back to what you said it's co-creation among equal partners. And I think that's extremely important. And as Liz pointed out in the example before, unless you look at the entire supply chain and you get everybody to understand that everybody has a role to play. It's not only Tesco, but it's the suppliers of Tesco and every single one of the suppliers to Tesco or whatever other company we are talking about. Back to the retail level and to Irina. I know that X5 is very much committed to finding sustainable resources and resource use and actively looking into reducing food waste and also doing this through opportunities and piloting technological solutions to transfer food waste to further processing. And that includes further processing into animal feed, fertilizers, biogas. I would also like to know particularly talking about these long supply chains. What about the cooperation with farmers in particular? How do you go to the end of the supply chain and cooperate with them? Irina, the floor is yours. Liliana, thank you for the question. Yes, first of all, we really prevent the formation of waste. The first thing we do is we monitor the season of goods in our stores. When we see that the season of goods is coming to an end, we use the Markdown technology, reduce the price, and in three days before the end of the season of goods, people can buy these products at a lower price. Next, when the season of goods is coming to an end, or for example, we work with fruits and vegetables that have lost their product appearance, we have a small difference from European legislation. If the products have lost their product appearance, then we have to recognize these products as waste, and according to our legislation, we cannot transfer waste to people's food. Unfortunately, there is no cooperation with the banks. The only thing we can do is to transfer this product to either a farmer or a biogas manufacturer. We have numbers. For example, in 2018, we transferred 39,000 tons of such products to feed animals, to work on thermal and further feeding, and to biogas production. Last year, this indicator rose to 45,000 tons, and we have a plan that in 2023, we would like to transfer 40% of such product waste to a farmer or a biogas manufacturer. Thank you. Thank you very much for taking the time to look further the circular economy in this context and how we are not all alone in this. And this is also my question to Balazs, because we have the food banks, and we have to look forward, we have more affected people than ever before. I see change needed or other measures needed to support food banks and food recovery options. What do you think is missing or what could help you even more? Balazs, the floor is yours. Thank you. I see two potential policy measures. One is very simple. I think all food distribution organizations need more financial help and in-kind help and more food to be able to serve more people in need. It's very simple because we are using our maximum capacities and we simply can't do more. I mean, volunteer work and the individual and the corporate donations have their limits. So if we want to grow further and serve more people, we need more resources. That's one thing. The other option I see, and we saw a very interesting example in Hungary for that, how economical interventions can be connected with social interventions. At the time when food processors were hit by the crisis because they lost their market, either because of the close down of the food service sector or the limitations of the export markets. The Hungarian government and Ministry of Agriculture has started an action which was an economic help for these companies but with the connection of social help because the financial help these companies received was with the condition of helping food redistribution and charity organizations with food donations. So these companies could use these resources and their capacities to help people in need. And actually now we receive a good amount of additional food donations from these companies and thereby I think connecting economic and social measures can be a good solution because these are the two most important aspects I think of the COVID crisis today. Thank you very much, Paul-Agen. I think this is a very good closing word also for this panel and I would like to thank all panel members and let me immediately go over to the question and answers because they're very much linked to what was said before. On the food banks and particularly the food banks in Russia. Irina, I would have a question from you, from someone who was wondering why the food bank where there was only one food bank in Russia. This RUS fund is the only one that works in the way you described it. Why do you think there are not more similar initiatives and what could be done to improve this situation? Irina. Irina, the food bank is really the only one. As far as we understand, the structure of the work of the organization is licensed and we have the only one who is a member of the association. Of course, there are other organizations that also carry out activities related to commercial assistance in the territory of the Russian Federation, but they are not so large, they do not cover even half of the territory of our country. And I really agree with the previous speaker that what is needed in order for the second, third food bank to appear, the resources are needed. Really, for this, probably, some additional financing is needed and the frames are needed. People who will be competent enough to carry out such activities. Be feasible and effective in lower income countries? Yes, I think so. And I think there's every possibility that it will eventually get down to developing countries because some of those supply chains that people like Tesco, they buy crops that originally started in Kenya. So there's no reason why eventually it won't get right back down to the farm level. I also see great potential for regional approaches being taken as well. I don't think it should be limited to, okay, we've set up this global approach. There's no reason why a region couldn't do something which would actually allow you to get more quickly to some of the little farmer level interventions. Thanks much, Liz. And this also begs the question which was asked and I would like to call on Robert to answer this question. What do you think the government's role is in all this? We've heard a lot about private sector initiatives, about the food banks, about the role of the NGOs. A question from the floor is now, what is the government's role in reducing food waste in the current situation? Thank you. The government, from the beginning of this global program on food waste reduction, we have been combining the three major sectors to work together, which are the public sector. That includes the governments, the municipalities, the UN and EU institutions. Then there is the civil society, which are the NGOs, the food banks, the charities, etc. And there is the private sector, which are the ones who really produce and distribute the food and who actually also lose and waste the food. So they are the ones who really need to reduce food waste, the private sector, including the farmers, the industry, the processors, the retailers, the horticrafts. And then of course there is the general public, the consumers, who have taken for their part a big deal of the food waste. Now the role of the public sector, the government, is clearly to analyze and understand the reasons why food is being lost or wasted and what are the causes and what are the reasons behind the causes and why it does not solve itself. And then with this knowledge develop policy and legislation which is conducive for the private sector to act and to take the right measures to reduce food loss and waste. It has to be economically and socially acceptable and profitable for the private sector to take the right action to reduce food waste, especially food waste, which is a behavioral thing. And therefore people, most in the private sector as well at individual level, need to change their attitudes and their behavior in order to reduce food waste. And that is where the public sector plays a strong role, by creating the right policy and legislative environment for the private sector to act and the right awareness raising and motivation for people to change their attitudes. Thank you. Thanks much Robert and I fully agree it takes all players to actually bring about any kind of change or any kind of resilience building here and the way the crisis worked in the beginning was a bit confused but I think a lot of the players did realize that alone they cannot do it. I would have one question for Angela. The food banks played an extremely in important role and I was wondering and that is a question from the floor. How did you or do you preserve the food you keep in your food banks. How fast do you have to get them out of your warehouses or how does that work in practice over to you Angela. Well, thank you very much for the question. First of all, I will say that, well, especially during the pandemic. So today, but also in our daily activity. The goal is to keep the food in the warehouses in the food banks for a very short period because, as you can imagine, most of the food which is recovered by the food banks is food which is really close to the expiry date. The role of the food banks is to pick up this food and as Balas said, there is usually a centralized and decentralized logistics. So most of the times the food is picked up and then stored in the warehouse where it is selected and also sorted and then redistributed to the charities or it is directly redistributed to the charities without passing through the food bank through the warehouse. Because the goal is to redistribute the food as soon as possible so that in this way the charities and the final and the final beneficiaries have enough time to consume the food. So really the goal is not to store the food or to preserve the food in the warehouses in the food banks, but to have a very quick and agile logistics so that people have a lot of time to to consume the food. Thanks much Angela. I hope this answered the questions. It's certainly not the aim of the game to push food waste further down the chain and into the food banks. That's definitely any food bank has to think of that and the fast distribution and the fast reacting supply chains coming back would be a very important part of such a strategy. With this, I would like to wrap up the session of Q&A and thank everyone, thank the participants and thank the organizers for having us. Thank all the panelists and with this hand over to Robert for the closing remarks. Thank you. Thank you too. Actually, the question just asked to me already give me an opportunity to make most of the remarks that I had intended for my closing remarks. As far as the private sector is concerned, they are the most important actors to reduce food loss and waste together with the consumers, I have to say that. You may notice that the private sector is not always present in this type of webinars and discussion platforms. I see it in a rather positive way because they have a business to run and they don't have so much time for talking and it is also not really their role to create the awareness like we are doing through this webinar or so. You can rest assured that in the programs and projects that we are implementing in different countries in the world, that we closely and continuously interact and engage with the private sector. Because as I said, we need to know how we can help them to reduce food loss and food waste in their business and in the value chains that they are operating. The strategy of the safe foods initiative at the moment is to address food loss and waste at national level because that is in the nation, the food system in the country is an entity that can be controlled and influenced and supported to reduce food loss and waste. And therefore in those countries, we develop national food loss and waste reduction strategies, which will be supervised and implemented by the consortium of public private sector partners and civil society. That is the approach that we follow and it seems to be, in most countries we are now at the level of finalizing national strategies and we hope we will be able to get resources in order to start implementing these strategies as well. And a project like we have been discussing here in regard to addressing recovery and redistribution of surplus foods as a result of the COVID pandemic could be one very good example of implementation of such strategies. Then before I close, I would like to mention that this webinar is one of the series organized by FUS Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia and the next webinar will take place next week on 18 November. And the topic is seed systems in the time of COVID-19, challenges and opportunities, agricultural seed systems in the region. And with this I would like to again to thank everyone who participated and to thank all the participants who were here and we hope that from what we have been discussing we all have an opportunity to continue collaboration and expand collaboration in order to implement food loss and waste selection in the region and in the world. Thank you very much again.