The first edition of the Nordic Food Forum turned out to be a great occasion for AFINO to present the Food Waste Reduction Pathways and Index: its first pilot project.
It also offered the opportunity to see how many interesting initiatives and research are emerging around making the food chain more sustainable.

The Nordic Food Forum was arranged in Trondheim on September 21st to 22nd September, and organised by NTNU Food Forum. The forum’s aim is to act as a catalyst in bringing together academia, industry and food actors, SMEs, and startups to discuss Nordic Food System Transformation.
In this first edition of the forum, AFINO was a part of the programme. AFINO coordinator and leader of Work Package 2, Giovanni De Grandis, presented the work of one of the AFINO pilots. Nhat Strøm-Andersen too was there too to represent BREAD and AFINO.

AFINO’s centre coordinator and leader of Work Package 2, Giovanni De Grandis, presenting at the forum.

Promoting action for reducing food waste
The pilot is a collaboration with the BREAD project, Matvett and NORSUS. The ambition of the pilot is the development of the Food Waste Reduction Pathways and Index, PAX for short. This concept builds on the existing industry agreement and reporting system, as well as on the recently developed 10 principles, and aims at turning knowledge, data and principles into concrete actions.

In addition to the existing Food Waste reporting system, PAX proposes the creation of Food Waste Reduction Pathways, both at company level and at the value chain level to address systemic challenges. To monitor and publicise results and reward the efforts, PAX would also include a Performance and Contribution Index that would acknowledge the results achieved by companies and organisations both in improving their processes and in contributing to the progress of the sector.

The Forum was a good opportunity to establish connections and learn about other work.

Interesting meeting place
The Forum gave Giovanni and Nhat the opportunity to learn about several interesting initiatives and projects and to establish some promising connections.

– Let’s see, we may have some interesting developments in store, says De Grandis, and reveals that a more detailed description of the pilot will soon be published on AFINO’s website.

Photo all images: Hilde Skar Olsen, Lund University.

Giovanni De Grandis
Researcher and centre coordinator for AFINO at NTNU

Giovanni De Grandis has a PhD in Philosophy. In the last ten years he has worked in several transdisciplinary projects and initiatives in the areas of health, new technologies, innovation and public policy. He is the coordinator of the AFINO project and leads Work Package 2.