More than 44,000 tonnes of food have been saved from waste during the first decade of Romania's Food Bank network, which now regularly supports more than 340,000 vulnerable people through partner charities, the Federation of Food Banks in Romania (FBAR) said on Thursday.
The organisation is marking its 10th anniversary in September, a decade after Romania's first food bank was established in Bucharest in 2016, launching what subsequently developed into a nationwide movement against food waste, agerpres reports.
The initiative was founded by Gabriel Sescu after he studied the model developed in Milan by Italy's Fondazione Banco Alimentare and decided to introduce the same circular-economy mechanism in Romania.
The Bucharest pilot subsequently provided the model and support for expansion across the country. The network now comprises nine regional food banks in Bucharest, Cluj, Roman, Brasov, Oradea, Timisoara, Constanta, Craiova and Galati, covering the whole of Romania.
Between the collection of its first kilogram of food in 2016 and the end of June 2026, the network collected more than 49,000 tonnes of products.
Of this, more than 44,000 tonnes of food were rescued directly from waste in the agri-food supply chain, including commercial surpluses, products with cosmetic imperfections and excess stocks that remained safe for consumption.
More than 4,000 tonnes of staple foods were donated by the public through national food collection campaigns, while the network also collected more than 1,800 tonnes of essential non-food products.
Overall, more than 96 million portions of food have been provided to people in need over the decade, FBAR said.
The federation currently works with 910 partner charities that distribute rescued food directly to disadvantaged people. Around 340,000 vulnerable people, including children from disadvantaged backgrounds, elderly people without support, single mothers and families without income, receive food assistance through the network.
"Looking back at these ten years of tireless work, I see more than logistical figures, large warehouses or refrigerated trucks. I see people and lives saved. I see the courage of our late founder, Gabriel Sescu, who believed in a European model when everyone told him that such an initiative was a utopia in Romania. And I see the profound generosity of the hundreds of partner companies that understood that food means dignity and life," FBAR president Romuald Bulai said.
"We started by saving a single kilogram of food, and today our network provides daily security for hundreds of thousands of people. This decade of solidarity shows us that organised and consistent action can overcome waste and indifference," he added.
The federation said tackling food waste and hunger remained a long-term mission and called on Romanian agricultural, food production, processing and retail companies to systematically donate safe surplus products.
The Federation of Food Banks in Romania and its nine regional food banks form a nationwide network that rescues food from waste and redirects it to vulnerable communities. FBAR is a member of the European Food Banks Federation (FEBA).
