Greece has been facing many challenges like its ongoing economic crisis, the refugee crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic which have led to more than 30% of people who live in poverty (3.2mio) to become extremely vulnerable to food insecurity. Additional to the Greek population in need, there is a huge number of refugees living in Greek refugee camps and shelters – around 50,000 people. They are provided with food through a government catering, which often lacks healthy fresh foods.

The Food Bank of Greece supports poor and marginalised people who do not have enough means to buy food for themselves and their families. To cover the needs of all these people, the Food Bank of Greece works together with supermarkets to collects food with a long lifespan and redistributing them to people in need in the regions. In Greece, the overall amount of distributed food has nearly doubled from 1,414 tonnes in 2019 to 2,359 tonnes in 2020, showing how tremendous the demand in the country really is.

In order to also provide fresh food, which is much more difficult to receive and transport, as it has to be done immediately and before the food expires, the Food Bank of Greece is starting to collect surplus fruit and vegetables form Athens Central Market.

With this project, Suyana enables the Greek Food Bank to save around 30 tons of fruit and vegetables per year from becoming food waste. Together with around 150 local charities the food is distributed to the people with the biggest needs in Athens and its surroundings.

Suyana bears the logistics and transport costs to bring the food from the market to the distribution centre.

With CHF 100, you can save around 0.6 tons of fruit and vegetables and ensure healthy meals for 1,100 people.