United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 12.3^[1] aims to halve global food waste and reduce food losses along the supply chain by 2030. To track progress, the Food Waste Index (FWI)^[2] provides a framework for measuring food waste across various supply chain stages—including agriculture, manufacturing, distribution, etc., and highlights food redistribution as a critical component.

But to effectively monitor progress against SDG 12.3, redistribution data must be integrated into national and international reporting systems. Food banks, as facilitators of food redistribution, are in a prime position to lead this effort.

A recent Global Foodbanking Network (GFN) white paper^[3] highlights the importance of a strong monitoring and reporting infrastructure around food redistribution, so that these activities can be attributed towards nationally determined contributions  targets for the food bank's operational country.

Despite the momentum around food redistribution, measurement and reporting are challenging:

• Lack of standardised reporting: many food businesses record donations in different formats, making aggregation difficult.
• Fragmented data sources: information about food redistribution is often spread across supply chains, third-party logistics providers, and nonprofit networks, limiting visibility.
• Environmental impact tracking remains sparse: while many companies track waste reduction, few have standard methodologies to capture environmental and social impact of their food redistribution efforts.

Without data, governments struggle to integrate food redistribution data into national climate reporting, and food businesses miss opportunities to quantify and report on their contributions toward sustainability goals.

Food banks are the natural stewards of redistribution data

Food banks coordinate redistribution activities between food donors and community organisations, managing a complex flow of food across regions. Unlike other entities in the food supply chain, food banks:

• Have direct visibility into where surplus food comes from and how it is redistributed.
• Work with hundreds of food business donors.
• Maintain strong relationships with the community sector, with a clear line of sight on the social impact of food redistribution, which individual food donors often lack.

For all these reasons food banks are in a unique position to standardise the model for collecting and reporting on food redistribution data,  ensuring that food redistribution metrics are not just collected but also integrated into national and international sustainability efforts.

The FoodCloud Data Solution

Recognising this need, FoodCloud has developed a data infrastructure to capture food redistribution activity - our solution brings together:

• An enterprise data warehouse, consolidating information from our warehouse management system, customer relationship management, and our virtual foodbanking application, Foodiverse.
• Scalable and secure data pipelines, providing automated and scalable processing of food redistribution data.
• Analytics dashboards, offering detailed insights for internal users, food donors and industry partners.
  
  

This infrastructure allows us to accurately track:

• Food received, food redistributed, and food wasted at the food bank level.
• Number of food business partners sending food and community partners receiving food.
• Breakdowns by donor, recipient, food category, region, supply chain stage, etc. for food volumes, CO₂ equivalent, water use, land use and nutritional info.
• Event-level data on all donations, enabling the application of business intelligence and machine learning to optimise redistribution and ensure surplus food gets the best possible end-of-life outcome, following the EU Food Use Hierarchy^[4].
  
  

This reporting solution currently supports impact reporting for FoodCloud’s food business partners in Ireland, and also provides operational insights to support internal teams in optimising the flow of food through our physical or virtual redistribution infrastructure.

Scaling This to a National and EU-Level Framework

We are working in close partnership with our industry partners and funders, to deliver a reporting framework designed for wider implementation, with alignment to EU and global standards to ensure broader applicability and potential adoption at a European level.

We hope this approach will provide several key benefits for various stakeholder types:

• For food businesses: a streamlined, compliant reporting framework for ESG and sustainability data.
  
  
• For governments: reliable national data on food redistribution, supporting climate and waste reduction targets.
  
  
• For food banks: actionable insights that enhance operational efficiency and impact assessment.

I’m excited to be part of the @FoodCloud @FEBA collaboration, working with @Anthesis, to co-develop a unified reporting framework that is robust and scalable, and aligned with the needs of food banks, food businesses, and policymakers. We have a unique opportunity to shape a data model that truly reflects the impact of food redistribution.

[1] UN Sustainable Development Goals https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal12

[2] UNEP Food Waste Index https://www.unep.org/resources/report/unep-food-waste-index-report-2021

[3] GFN Whitepaper https://www.foodbanking.org/resources/carbon-markets-and-financing-mechanisms-for-food-banking-organizations/

[4] EPA Food Waste Hierarchy https://www.epa.gov/sustainable-management-food/food-recovery-hierarchy