Sharing is caring

Food waste is a topic that has received a lot of attention in both the media and politics lately. In Norway, more than 390 000 tons of edible food is thrown away every year, which is equivalent to the weight of 19 500 trucks. With such frightening numbers, it is easy to think that we have fallen into an infinite deep hole without a way out. Luckily, we have plenty of committed students and local residents in Ås who contribute to the solution on how to get out of this hole.

Journalist: Iris van Brunschot
Photographer: Lina Grünbeck
Translator: Pauline Marie Sønderå

The food is presented at Pentagon, where it disappears quickly.

NMBU Foodsharing
For a long time, it has been a big interest in fighting food waste among the students at NMBU. NMBU Foodsharing started up three years ago as a part of Spire, an environmental and development organization, only as a shelf in the ABC-basement. Here, students who were going away could leave food they no longer needed. The shelf quickly developed to become a place where people left food they had found in while dumpster diving. The local team of Spire began to think how the project could be better managed, and eventually they created NMBU Foodsharing, a group on Facebook.

Eva Helene Nagelhus, who was involved in the start-up phase of the project, tells us that NMBU Foodsharing is not an organization, but an initiative everyone can take part in. “The Facebook group has now developed into a platform where students can find both fellow students to dumpster dive with, and to put out the food they have found in the dumpsters to share with others”. She emphasizes that it should be an environment where you can do exactly what you want to and have the capacity for.

Today the Facebook group has nearly 900 members, so it is clear that the topic is of big interest. But how many people in Ås actually know what “dumpster diving” is? And why does the students at NMBU search for food in dumpsters?

Farzana thoroughly goes through the food we are bringing to Pentagon.

A dive into the trash
Our survey confirms that many people in Ås have heard of and have tried “dumpster diving”. Almost 35 % of the students have taken a dip into the trash at some point, and 15% of these reports themselves as weakly regulars. There are several reasons why people dumpster dive, but personal economy and a desire to fight food waste are some of the main reasons.

Big findings include 30 kilograms of coffee (free coffee for half a year), 20 kilograms of Norvegia cheese and an annual consumption of Cheese Doodles and “Walters Mandler”. Eva Nagelhus tells us that she is an active dumpster diver herself, and that one time she found beer worth 3000 NOK. “This was pre-Covid, so we had a pretty big party with lots of beer!”.

Around 38% of the students are also members of NMBU Foodsharing on Facebook, and the other 16% state that they want to join. About 44% do not know what the group is, so hopefully they will read this article and get the desire to join!

CEO for Rema 1000 Ås likes to think in a green direction.

The Rema-Spire arrangement
In addition to creating a joint group for dumpster divers, NMBU Foodsharing has drawn up an arrangement with REMA 1000 Ås to reduce food waste. This arrangement allows the students to pick up food that will soon reach its expiration date and deliver it to either a fridge in the center of Ås (called “fellesskapet”), or the ABC basement at Pentagon. In this way, the initiative gives back to the local people in Ås, while at the time relieving some of the financial pressure on the students.

Committed volunteers
Wednesday at 1pm. I got a text from Farzana, one of many volunteers working with the Rema 1000 agreement. She writes that there is food to pick up and asks me if I want to join. I tell her that I would love to, and around three hours later I meet her by the store. When I arrive, I quickly learn that Farzana knows what she is doing. I follow her to where we pick up the food and she starts to seal everything we are allowed to bring. While working, she tells me why this project engages her so much. “I know I can’t do everything, but I do whatever I am capable of to help the community and the environment, such as sharing this food.”

When we get to the ABC-basement the food is placed at the table and posted on Facebook. “It usually disappears within minutes”, she says. I get the impression that Farzana, like so many Ås students, is really engaged in this. But how do the grocery stores face the problem?

Steinar Jordet thinks there are several advantages with stopping food waste from the perspective of the grocery stores. As CEO for Rema 1000 Ås he explains that it is painful to throw away edible food, but sometimes it is unavoidable. “That’s why it is so incredibly nice that the students can pick it up and eat it. It makes me really happy”.

In addition, it is beneficial for the stores financially, because it can help to reduce the large costs associated with waste management. It is a win-win-situation.

A store on the team
The agreement has also helped Rema 1000 Ås to focus on a better structure where they thoroughly go through everything closing in on the expiration date. “It is common to throw away about two 240-liter rubbish bins every week, but ever since we started up the agreement with Spire, the amount is close to being halved”, says Steinar. He adds that many grocery stores have local agreements to reduce food waste. There are few common agreements to prevent this, at the Norwegian state currently plays a passive role in the fight against food waste. There is a big potential for improvement here, and Jordet believes that “state rules on collecting the food could have a positive effect on the grocery industry”.

A future filled with possibilities
“Foodsharing” has an exciting story, and also huge potential for the future. Eva smiles when she tells me that she is often called up by people wondering what this initiative is about and how it is organized. Among other things, NTNU has started a “Foodsharing” platform based on NMBU’s project.

Furthermore, Elaina Weber can tell that they have had similar projects underway for a long time in both Germany and in the Netherlands. She has been involved in continuing the concept in Wageningen, the Netherlands, where she was on an exchange in 2019/20. “I noticed that much of the food put in community fridges was never used and eventually thrown away”, she says. Her solution was to link the “Foodsharing” initiative to community kitchens, where people meet regularly to share meals. “It was a fantastic experience to expand the “Foodsharing” principle to municipality level, and along the way I realised that this really brings people together; everyone comes to the table when a hot meal is served!”

On the top of it all, Spire Ås has come up with a resolution to cut down on food waste along the entire Norwegian value chain. The measures in the resolution are based on the “Foodsharing” principle and has been voted into the organization’s policy nationally. The leader of Spire Ås, Helene Godhavn, was inspired by getting approval for the requirements on a national basis. “Getting our input introduced on a larger scale gave an enormous feeling of achievement and inspired us to continue our work”, she says.

“Sharing is caring”
“Sharing is caring” is perhaps a cliché, but a well description of the “Foodsharing” environment in Ås. Although food waste is a huge problem, light beams are starting to penetrate the giant pile of food that for a long time blocked the sun out. The solution on how to climb out of the infinite deep black hole is starting to take shape, and soon we have the recipe on how to live a healthier and more sustainable lifestyle.