Banca Regională Pentru Alimente Cluj (Cluj Regional Food Bank) redistributes the food we waste to people in need
BRAC was set up in 2018 with a view to reducing food waste. It works with the nine regional food banks currently active in Bucharest, Roman, Oradea, Brașov, Timișoara, Constanța, Craiova and Galați and the Romanian Federation of Food Banks. It is a big national network promoting the values of solidarity, which links up surplus food and the people who can't afford to buy food.
Its goal is to make sure that food and non-food products which are considered surplus but which have taken resources and labour to produce are not thrown out or wasted: these goods are redirected to people in need who do not have the money to buy necessary items.
The organisational model is very simple and builds on the well-established food bank system: excess food is collected from supermarkets and restaurants in four vans adapted to food transport, which is then stored in a logistics centre, distributed to local charities, or processed for daily meals in homeless shelters.
Since it was set up, BRAC saved 2 659 tonnes of food and redistributed it to more than 51 000 people in need through a network of 202 non-profit organisations running social programmes.