In the 2Seas area tons of food are wasted on a daily basis and the number of people experiencing food insecurity is increasing. Moreover, still a lot of people far from the labour market struggle to find meaningful jobs. Flavour turns this challenge into an opportunity by giving new life to food surplus, either by redistributing it to people in vulnerable situations or by processing it into new foods with longer shelf life. Covid19 caused unprecedented challenges with an impact on everyone, also on the pilots within Flavour.

Five food distribution pilots are collecting food surplus at farms, supermarkets, auctions and food companies. They collected and distributed approximately 2300 tonnes of food surplus, more than 40% of which is fruit and vegetables, reaching over 50 000 people in food insecurity. Panier de la Mer started focusing on brokering food surplus between food companies and social organisations gaining a lot of credibility in Northern France, growing the collaboration pilot. Over 100 tonnes was distributed this way to 25 social organisations in the region.

In November Feedback gleaned over a ton of pumpkins, the kick off of their processing pilot. Look forward to delicous Pumpkin soup. Its inspired by the Panier de la Mer fish soup which Phil could taste at the meeting in France. Not only pumpkins are surplus in Sussex, Fareshare Sussex also collects huge amount of fruits and veggies. With BHFP they'll create a healthy snack , fruit leather.

This activity makes it possible for pilots to create new job opportunities suitable for people far from the labour market, at least 11 over the course of year. Training is key to develop and maintain skills needed to work in the food sector. Marjon University, Vives and Herwin join forces to create a training guid and toolbox for mentors in the field. The training will be co-created with mentors working in the sector positively impacting a lot of people far from the labour market. These pilots are great but to be durable in the long run a suitable socio-economic business model needs to be created, taking into acount social return on investment. A business model works best in a policy environment favorable to prevent food waste and to create jobs for vulnerable people. A policy task force is set out to start creating that positive climate. The preparatory work already started, presentations were given by PPs in different webinars to an audience of policy makers and stakeholders in the food surplus sector.