Letting Athenians (citizens) to be part of the Food Waste solution, by placing their surplus food, items & daily meals they have at home, on a network of public cupboards located at central squares and streets across city. FoodSpots act as light-volume foodbanks and aim to feed the more vulnerable segments of population, while diverting waste from landfills, as food is shared and not thrown away.

(Pitched: 15/04/2018)

One Page Summary

According to Challenge Owner (CO) “a growing number of people are in need of food facilitation”. Foodspots aim to ‘kill two birds with one stone’ by tackling two societal challenges tightly related to one another, which, if remain ill‐managed or underestimated, can have severe repercussions for society, public health, economy and the environment. The challenges of reducing Food Waste (FW) and Landfilling of Waste. FW is a complex social, economic and environmental problem, placed in the epicentre of the European Union’s priorities’ agenda and commitment to tackle the problem. Apart from the obvious and infuriating paradox of scrapping end slices and crusts of sandwich loaves, FW also means energy, water and land having been consumed in vein and resources spent to manage waste which could be avoided, ergo FW has also a significant negative economic impact on our modern world. Experts estimate that reducing food waste at consumer level in developed countries by 30% could save roughly 400,000 Km2 of cropland by 2030. According to CO 90% of the poor people in Athens depend on food banks and many of them are suffering from undernourishment. Also, approximately, 196 kg of food per person is wasted every year in Greece, ranking the country in the 4th worst place in the EU when it comes to food waste. It is also estimated that over half of all food waste takes place in the household level. In fact, FW is clearly a demonstration of a resource inefficient economy, in that sense, a Circular Economy approach, which puts the emphasis on preventing waste and on reuse nutritious food in the first place, is the best solution to the problem.
On the other hand, the residential sector undoubtedly plays an important role in waste generation. In Greece, only a limited share (20%) is recycled while more than 80% is landfilled. In that sense, as we are still trying to figure out ways to tackle the challenges of waste generation, the situation currently costs millions of € to municipalities, in terms of taxes and fees, due to low recycling performance and to their significant dependence on Landfilling. It is evident, that there is an urgent need for increasing overall recycling capture rates, diversion from landfill and conversion into resources. Considering this background, increasing public participation, and improving the behavior of citizens is a priority in this context. However, citizens participation levels and recycling performance are still very low. An effective approach to improving recycling volumes is to focus on innovations that shift consumer behavior. It is believed that an increased recycling performance and longer-term citizen's engagement are potentially achievable. In doing so, Foodspots aims at the creation of an innovative waste chain operating model, leading to the fulfilling sense of contribution and responsibility and providing significant impact to national economy, environment and society.
Foodspots aims to engage, activate and educate householders to join forces against two major societal and public health challenges at the EU level, i.e. food waste reduction and landfilled waste, the latter directly connected with food waste by means of overbuying, and greedy food portions serving at the consumer level. This objective will be achieved through the installment of public food cupboard stations, Kind of like a Food-Banks, but in a more light-volume version, where a household or business can store the surplus food and other items, while the segments of more vulnerable population can pick up portions that needs. Our ‘Foodspots’ solution is designed to be a connecting point for the community to increase the awareness of the Food Waste and Landfilled Waste for responsible consumerism, thus creating responsible and aware citizens.  
Cyclefi is a Athens based startup, that conceptualized and is developing the "Foodspots" project. Cyclefi, although a new entry in the market with just a yearlong presence, already received eight (8) environmental awards & recognitions that provide credibility to its added value solution.