Circular Food Center: world example in tackling food waste

In 2021 a European knowledge and meeting center in the field of food waste will open in the municipality of Meierijstad: the Circular Food Center. Initiators Samen Tegen Voedselverspilling (Together Against Food Waste Foundation), the municipality of Meierijstad, the province of North Brabant and the Dutch government want to make the Netherlands a world example when it comes to circular and innovative food chains. The initiatives in the center contribute to the United Nations SDG 12.3 to halve food waste in the chain by 2030 compared to 2015. The Circular Food Center is a key project in the Northeast Brabant Region Deal.

Space for businesses, education, research and consumers

The Circular Food Center must accommodate important initiatives and expertise surrounding raw material preservation and the prevention of food wastage. Companies from the entire chain, government, social organizations and knowledge institutions will join forces, network and knowledge, with the concrete objective of preserving 1 billion kilos within the food chain annually. Together with students, entrepreneurs and researchers can develop business cases and research and education programs to make the food chain waste-free.

Innovations in practice

Clusters of companies and knowledge institutions will also come together to put innovations, which go beyond the level of an individual company, into practice. A first cluster will start working together in 2021 within the field lab 'co-products for a circular and healthy animal protein chain'. Valuable waste streams, such as kitchen waste from the catering industry, are now often incinerated, composted or converted into biogas. While we could usefully reuse them, by processing them into feed for animals. The cluster wants to demonstrate possibilities around residual flow use for animal feed within the current legislation, which is currently not being used due to market restrictions.

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