Zero food waste with a sustainable model for food trade fairs
In collaboration with the food trade fair “ Østlandske Storhusholdningsmesse”, Matvett has developed a "best practice" model for how various actors can collaborate to carry out sustainable food trade fairs. The goal of the pilot project, which took place in 2021, was a zero food waste trade fair, with the best possible use of resources. The result was extraordinary and should be used as a standard for similar events in the future.
“Østlandske Storhusholdningsmesse” has become a popular event for catering actors in the Innlandet region of Norway. Every year, leading suppliers to the Norwegian catering industry are given the opportunity to present products and services to the region's catering actors. Food trade fairs are often associated with tasting samples, which means that exhibitors are often at risk of ending up with too much food on site. Not having a good plan for the management of surplus food, can lead to high levels of food waste. This is not sustainable for either the environment, the supplier’s wallet or the industry’s reputation.
A new model for sustainable food trade fairs
Østlandske Storhusholdningsmesse and Matvett wanted to do address this problem, so they invited relevant actors to find effective solutions for the management of surplus food together. The working group included the wholesale actor ASKO, Matsentralen Norge which is the network of Norwegian food banks, the Norwegian Hospitality Association (NHO Reiseliv), The Norwegian Chefs' National Association and Ragn-Sells, the regional waste-management company. Together they explored different challenges such as how much food each exhibitor should calculate to serve, how to communicate with exhibitors, how to collect the surplus food, etc. The result was a zero-waste food trade fair, where all the surplus food was either donated to charity, used as animal feed or sent to biogas production.
The experience was used by Matvett to develop a “best practice" model for how to arrange a sustainable food trade fair with a zero food waste vision. Matvett hopes that the model will inspire the food industry to take food waste more seriously when conducting food trade fairs and other large events.