Author name: George Athanasiadis

On 5th and 6th of September 2024, the ReS-Food project partners met in Novi Sad, Serbia, at the Faculty of Technology of the University of Novi Sad. After almost two years of intensive work and very close cooperation, partners have finalized all project results. The ReS-Food Training Course is ready both in a downloadable version, and online, with various interactive contents that ensure fun and entertaining learning for the users. Partners dedicated special attention to the organisation of the ReS-Food Multiplier Events, which will be conducted in Serbia, Greece, Hungary, Cyprus and Croatia in the last month of project implementation. These events will be organised not just for promoting the project products, but also to ensure a possibility to connect with each other for the target groups and stakeholders of the project. To this end, partners are kindly inviting not just hotels, restaurants, cafes, supermarkets and charity organisations, but also tourism and business development umbrella organisations for reaching even more members of the target groups. Among the topics discussed special focus was given to the communication efforts: partners agreed to promote the ReS-Food Course through the European Platform for Adult Learning and Education Platform (EPALE) to reach wide audiences across Europe and if possible, issue press releases to maximize impact. A strategy for ensuring long term sustainability of project results has been defined: the ReS-Food project website with all its contents will be maintained for at least 5 more years, and parts of the training will be integrated into the university curriculums and into partners’ service portfolios.    

Project partners from Serbia, Greece, Cyprus and Hungary met in Osijek, Croatia at the end of September 2023, to discuss and work on the development of the project results. Partners discussed the final touches that should be introduced to the ReS-food Methodological Framework, following the internal and external data gathering for improvements from testers. The final, improved version of the framework will assist companies/organizations to optimize generating food loss, as well as the humanitarian actors distributing donated food. The partners have been brainstorming ideas about the implementation of the “Measure my Food Waste Status” Self-Assessment Tool. Aspects such as user friendliness, structure and quality, comprehensibility, graphic display and the rating system, question type, duration have been discussed, to develop a self-assessment tool that will be best aligned with the needs and preferences of the target groups. The ReS-Food Educational Package will provide Charity Organizations with a course with all the required knowledge and methods to manage the food rescue chain end-to-end on one hand, on the other, it will increase the training level of humanitarian actors’ personnel and Ho.Re.Ca and Supermarkets employees and top management. Partners agreed to issue certificates to those, who complete the learning process and pass the exam afterwards. In order to improve the learning experience, partners will also include various games, quizzes and interactive elements to the educational package. Aspects, such as communication and sustainability have also been discussed in detail by the ReS-Food partners. A special thank you goes to our amazing hosts from the Josip Juraj Strossmayer University of Osijek for ensuring optimal working conditions and for the warm hospitality.