At this Paris restaurant, 'freegans' fight waste by cooking up food diverted from the dumpster

A group of volunteers in Luxembourg City collects edible food that shops and restaurants would dispose of at the end of the day to keep it from ending up in the garbage. Members of the organization, called Foodsharing Luxembourg, are informed through an app when food is available for pickup. Once they claim an order, they pick up everything the store offers and decide how it gets redistributed.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Rafael Duckur, an organic food producer in Brazil, started Pertim, a network of farmers working to help families in neighborhoods who can’t meet their basic needs. The group buys food like fruits, vegetables, eggs, and coffee from farmers to fill boxes that are sent to the neighborhoods. While the logistics of collecting and distributing the boxes can be difficult, Pertim hopes to cut down on food waste from unsold produce while supporting local agriculture producers.

NH Gleans is group of gleaners in New Hampshire working to ensure food security in their communities. The group gathers food that would otherwise go to waste and distributes it to local food kitchens, schools, and food pantries. In the last five years they have distributed almost half a million pounds of fruits and vegetables in a state where 1 in 10 people is food insecure.

In Hubli, a holy shrine of Advaita philosophy has a community kitchen that produces surprisingly little waste--even though it feeds about 6,000 people daily. The kitchen's methods are quite old, including composting and watering with grey water, but they appear to be working.

Since its 2015 Expo, Milan has continued to foster a number of unique initiatives to combat food waste, promote healthy and sustainable food systems, and ensure that its people never go hungry. Through projects such as collecting unsold food at the end of market day for distribution in soup kitchens, using apps to redirect food waste, implementing new laws to ease the process of food donation, as well as fostering collaboration between cities, Milan is leading the efforts to prioritize food on the New Urban Agenda.

Cooking to Share allows fifth- and sixth-grade students to cook meals for families in need. Since its inception, the program has served 78 families in the county, while teaching 2,000 students about cooking, food safety, foodborne illnesses, and cleanliness.

MARSH Grocery is a food cooperative with urban farm lots, an online catalog, a delivery program, a commercial kitchen, and a grocery store in which people can pay the amount on the sticker, 20% more, or 20% less. The cooperative is not quite profitable but is growing its customer base in a St. Louis neighborhood that previously lacked access to affordable, healthy food.

Good Grocer, a grocery store in Minneapolis, is a nonprofit run by volunteers who receive an additional discount on groceries for their work. The store’s food outlet offers discounts of up to 70% and provides affordable, healthy foods to combat food insecurity.

Community networks acted to keep people in Kashmir fed throughout COVID-19 restrictions and lockdowns. The Bonamsar mosque provides donation-funded monthly meal kits and small cash payments to people in need, including cooked food for those in immediate need. Tiffin Aaw provided meals to residents during political turmoil and shifted to serving warm meals to COVID-19 patients and their medical and family caregivers that couldn’t afford food. Both services included the culturally traditional food that has led the region to have the country’s highest nutritional health.

The Ajo Center for Sustainable Agriculture has helped the town of Ajo in Arizona distribute affordable and nutrient-dense food to the community after the coronavirus pandemic created a significant financial strain on many families. Additional support has come from the town's participation in the Environmental Protection Agency's program Local Food, Local Places which "provides technical support and expertise to help towns leverage food systems to boost economic development."