In parallel with addressing social-economic inequalities, the “Charity mission Food for Life” has also been actively involved in reducing waste pollution since 2020.

A significant change in this area was the regulations of the Chamber of Ministers of 11 August 2020, which allowed the distribution of food after the expiry date, which allows the use of expired food for charity.

In principle, these new rules should seriously reduce food loss and food waste in Latvia, but in reality the collection, sorting, preparation and distribution of such food to charity requires volunteer and infrastructure resources, which most Latvian charities lack.

As a new project at the end of 2020, “Charity mission Food for Life” has entered into an agreement with “Maxima Latvia” as a pilot project seven days a week collecting expired food from three “Maxima XXX” supermarkets in Deglava, Saharova and Slokas Street.

The mission’s three buses bring one and a half tons of food every day for processing, bringing more than 45 tons of food a month in total, most of which are vegetables and fruits. Our special experience is the vegetarian diet, as we are able to distribute these products to the needy both in the enrichment of free meals and in pre-packaged form.

We are able to process and distribute about 75% of these products to the needy, about 35 tons per month, and in turn only 10-12 tons of products become food waste.