The Life Foodprint project team of the partner K. Parpounas Sustainability Consultants Ltd, attended a meeting with the Life FOSTER and Life Climate Smart Chefs project team at the ENAIP NET offices in Padova, Italy, on 3 March 2023.

The Life FOSTER project aimed to prevent and reduce food waste in the catering sector through the education of professionals in the sector. The project was implemented in France, Italy and Spain during September 2018 to August 2022.

The Life Climate Smart Chefs aims to contribute to the development and implementation of the EU’s climate policy and the ‘Farm to Fork’ (F2F) strategy by actively engaging the European chefs as advocates for a low-emission, nutritious and affordable diet that reduces environmental impacts, improves public health and combats food waste. The project is being implemented in Italy, Finland and Ireland. It started in January 2022 and is expected to end in December 2024.

The meeting included an extensive presentation and discussion of the three projects and the development of discussions around the actions and its results over a period of 5 hours. Experiences, knowledge and tools of the projects were presented and exchanged through presentations.

Specifically, the Life FOSTER project aimed to raise awareness among the trainers, students and professionals in the catering sector on the issue of prevention of food waste through professional training. To achieve this goal, a specific application was developed and used which allows restaurant owners and trainers to quantify the food waste generated during their work, both for catering activities and restaurants. Thanks to the application, it was possible to create a personalised profile to monitor the whole process, including the preparation, storage of raw materials, the execution of the recipe until the final meal. In addition, the application allowed them to see the economic value of waste generated and monitor this trend over time. This information was summarised in clear and accurate graphics, so it was easier to identify the critical points of loss and waste, allowing a proper intervention to prevent and reduce food waste.

In terms of communication with the food catering industry stakeholders, the project successfully rose awareness, and increased the need of changing existing policies as well as developing new ones at national and European level. As part of the communication strategy, a series of events where held from various stakeholders and a number of video clips were developed and shown in the countries where the project was active. In addition, the ‘‘Life Foster Manifesto’’ was developed which is a voluntary pledge to reduce food waste for food professionals, trainers and students in the sector and citizens. To date 500 individuals, professionals and businesses have made this pledge online via the project website. Through the organisation of seminars (both physical and online) and exhibitions, 44.649 food professionals have been informed about the issues of food waste.

The Life Climate Smart Chefs, a continuation of the Life FOSTER project, aims to provide a high – level training to experienced chefs from all over Europe who can formulate new low – emission diets. The aforementioned app has been reconfigured in such way that it helps chefs to reconstruct such recipes and thus develop more climate smart menus. A Europen network of chef’s associations was also created, and awards were given to climate – smart chefs.

We would like to thank the ENAIP NET team for their hospitality, the interesting discussions and the exchange of knowledge.