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Swiss food bank saves 8,500 tonnes of food from going to waste

The foundation Schweizer Tafel saved 8,500 tonnes of food from going to waste last year.
The foundation Schweizer Tafel saved 8,500 tonnes of food from going to waste last year. Keystone-SDA

Last year the Schweizer Tafel food bank saved around 8,500 tonnes of food from going to waste and gave it to people in need. This represents an increase of 11% compared to 2024.

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Products from the food industry were a key driver of this development, Schweizer Tafel said on Monday. However, new deep-freeze logistics and optimised collection and distribution routes also contributed.

According to a statement, Schweizer Tafel provided a total of 1.7 million shopping bags of food last year, each weighing 5kg. This corresponded to goods worth CHF61.8 million ($77 million), saving 14,205 tonnes of CO2 emissions.

The goods were donated to social institutions such as soup kitchens, emergency shelters, women’s refuges, homeless shelters and food distribution centres.

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A lot of food goes to waste in Swiss households.

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Climate adaptation

Why the Swiss waste more food than they think 

This content was published on Despite years of awareness campaigns and a national project to reduce waste, large amounts of edible food go directly from Swiss kitchens to the trash.

Read more: Why the Swiss waste more food than they think 

Schweizer Tafel is a donation-funded foundation that has been active since 2001. Every day, it collects surplus food that is in good condition and non-food items from retail outlets and partners in the food industry and distributes them to institutions.

A similar organisation, “Tischlein deck dich”, also announced that last year it saved 9,000 tonnes of food that was due to be thrown away. This figure has been rising steadily for 26 years.

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