From Food Waste to Donations: The Case of Marketplaces in Northern Spain

There is a growing increase in the number of disadvantaged people whose basic needs, such as food, should be covered. In crisis periods, food banks and other entities have a special role to play in that social function. This research focuses on the marketplaces that are great generators of organic food waste due to the fact that almost all of their stalls are dedicated to the sales of fresh food. The work combines both qualitative (interviews with the person responsible for most of the marketplaces in a northern Spain region and with two health inspectors, as well as a participatory workshop with different stakeholders related to food recovery: a regional waste management company, a food bank and several beneficiary entities) and quantitative techniques (a massive survey of the market stalls where the interviews were previously conducted). The results allow us to estimate the volume of organic waste generated by these marketplaces and to propose guidelines that would facilitate a better management of the food surpluses with potential for use, in the first place, as donations to food banks and, secondly, as recoverable bio-waste.