The food donation system in Croatia, which until now was based on the resources of about 100 non-profit humanitarian organizations, which often found it more difficult to receive, transport and adequately store donated goods than to find donors, will soon be put under one umbrella - a food bank.

More precisely, 20 of them will be set up at county level, which should enable donors to quickly and easily donate surplus food, according to the Vecernji List daily of Thursday.

It will also enable targeted communication with one instead of the currently registered 129 intermediaries, infrastructure equipment, the possibility of accepting different amounts of donations from very small to large with relatively short expiration dates, the daily heard from Zdravko Barac, head of the Directorate for Animal Husbandry and Food Quality of the Ministry of Agriculture.

On the other hand, intermediaries in donating food will find additional donations in the bank for their users as well as logistical support in distribution such as transportation and storage.

According to data from the Ministry of Agriculture, 1,700 tonnes of food are donated annually in Croatia. But given that as much as 286,000 tonnes are thrown away, it is clear that there is still a lot of room for improvement in the redistribution of surplus food. The first project launched in the direction of establishing a food bank is the establishment of an IT system for e-donation.

It is a communication platform for donors and intermediaries. Donors can register surplus food in the system in a simple way, and the system administrator, instead of the donor, finds an adequate intermediary who can take over the food. About 500 tonnes of food have been saved with this project to date, says Barac, emphasizing that potential new donors are constantly being contacted as part of this project.

The application currently has 309 donor and 103 intermediary profiles. Last year, from the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, the relevant ministry secured €4.36 million of European money for the improvement of the food donation system, of which around €4 million will be invested in infrastructure equipment for intermediaries in the food donation chain and food banks, and the remaining €0.36 million for the digitization of the donation system and the educational and informational campaign.

In December, 51 grant agreements worth €1.95 million were signed, of which nine are beneficiaries of support for food banks and 42 are beneficiaries of support for intermediaries in the food donation chain.

The infrastructure equipment projects of food banks will be completed by the end of 2023, and they will start working at the beginning of 2024 at the latest, Barac told Vecernji List.