European Commission | Food Waste – Support to Stakeholders 2024-2025
The EU grants for projects to reduce consumer food waste have been launched. The call for proposals is open to all interested stakeholders, with a deadline to apply by 25 September 2024.The Single Market Programme grants are managed by the European Commission in collaboration with the European Health and Digital Executive Agency (HaDEA).The aim of the call is to support stakeholders in their actions to prevent and reduce the amount of food waste generated at consumer level. These cover actions such as:behavioural change interventions
- education and training
- food waste monitoring programs and tools
- awareness raising campaigns and communication materialsstudies, data collection and experimental actions widening the evidence base for consumer food waste prevention interventions etc.
This call targets both single stakeholders and multi-stakeholder collaborations or partnerships across the food supply chain, including key actors such as farmers, manufacturers, retailers, food services as well as researchers, NGOs and public entities.
Project budgets (maximum grant amount) are expected to range between EUR 100k and EUR 300k per project.
Applications will only be considered eligible if their content corresponds wholly (or at least in part) to the topic description for which it is submitted.
Eligible participants (eligible countries)
In order to be eligible, the applicants (beneficiaries and affiliated entities) must:
− be legal entities (public or private bodies)
− be from an eligible country, i.e.:
− EU Member State (including overseas countries and territories (OCTs).
Beneficiaries and affiliated entities must register in the Participant Register — before submitting the proposal — and will have to be validated by the Central Validation Service (REA Validation). For the validation, they will be requested to upload
documents showing legal status and origin. Other entities may participate in other consortium roles, such as associated partners, subcontractors, third parties giving in-kind contributions, etc (see section 13).
Geographic location (target countries)
Proposals must relate to activities taking place in the eligible countries (see above).
Duration
Projects should normally range between 18 and 24 months.
Extensions are possible, if duly justified and through an amendment.
Project budget
Project budgets (maximum grant amount) are expected to range between EUR 100.000 and EUR 300.000 per project.
This does not however preclude the submission/selection of proposals requesting other amounts. The grant awarded may be lower than the amount requested.
Objectives
The objective of this call for proposals is to support EU stakeholders (single or multi[1]stakeholders) in taking actions to address consumer food waste (both in- and out[1]of-home), covering types of actions such as behavioural change interventions, education and training, the elaboration and implementation of food waste prevention guidelines, food waste monitoring programs, awareness raising campaigns and communication materials, and development of new business models. Actions out-of home could, for example, take place in schools, canteens, restaurants and cafeterias.
Proposals shall describe how the Target-Measure-Act approach25 is applied in the
4 steps below:
– carrying out an initial food waste diagnosis to understand the extent of the issue and to identify the “hotspots” needing specific action (e.g., target audiences, situations where food waste arises). This could be based on a previously made diagnosis. This process should be clearly described in the proposal.
– setting food waste reduction targets26 with reference to a specific baseline. Project proposals should define SMART objectives and specific KPIs (ideally including reduction of food waste and/or other indicators such as changes in awareness and/or attitudes, results indicators such as outreach achieved etc.) to be utilised in monitoring progress made.
– developing and implementing actions to tackle the hotspots identified during the initial food waste diagnosis.
– carrying out a final evaluation at the end of the project, in order to understand the results achieved by implementing the actions, and progress made towards the targets and KPIs set. The results of the evaluation should be publicly available and accessible for key stakeholders (see Expected impacts section for further information). Information on projections concerning the food waste reduction trend in the long term, or for how long the action(s) proposed by the project is/are expected to bring food waste reductions, is welcome.
Activities that can be funded (scope)
A wide range of activities are eligible to be supported by the grants offered under this call for proposals, provided that they can be linked to the abovementioned objectives.
The grants would cover consumer food waste prevention actions (in and out-of[1]home) such as (non-exhaustive list):
– behavioural change interventions (e.g. nudges to prevent food waste at consumer level such as specific tools and prompts for households and in food services, coaching programmes, etc.);
– education and training (e.g. school programmes, staff training and actions in school canteens);
– awareness raising campaigns (e.g. local, regional or national scale);
– measurement and reporting tools and solutions for preventing food waste at consumption level (e.g. mobile applications and other monitoring tools beyond self[1]reporting);
– studies, data collection and experimental actions widening the evidence base for consumer food waste prevention interventions (e.g. audience segmentation studies to better tailor and target actions).
Actions proposed should go beyond the provision of information to consumers and focus on supporting consumer behavioural change to reduce food waste. Initiatives should be evidence-based, using an appropriate behavioural change model wherever possible. They may combine awareness raising together with practical tips and tools to help consumers reduce food waste.
Proposed actions must comply with relevant EU and EU legislation (food safety, food information to consumers, animal health, etc.). Actions promoting waste treatment, such as composting, are not covered by the scope of this call, nor are actions promoting the use of food no longer intended for human consumption to animal feed.
Budget categories and cost eligibility rules
The budget categories and cost eligibility rules are fixed in the Grant Agreement (Data Sheet, point 3, art 6 and Annex 2).
Budget categories for this call:
− A. Personnel costs
− A.1 Employees,
− A.2 Natural persons under direct contract,
− A.3 Seconded persons
− A.4 SME owners and natural person beneficiaries
− B. Subcontracting costs
− C. Purchase costs
− C.1 Travel and subsistence
− C.2 Equipment
− C.3 Other goods, works and services
− D. Other cost categories
− D.1 Financial support to third parties
− E. Indirect costs
Specific cost eligibility conditions for this call:
− personnel costs:
− SME owner/natural person unit cost36: Yes
− travel and subsistence unit cost37
− equipment costs: depreciation
− other cost categories:
− costs for financial support to third parties: not allowed
− indirect cost flat-rate: 7% of the eligible direct costs (categories A-D, except
volunteers costs and exempted specific cost categories, if any)
− VAT: non-deductible VAT is eligible (but please note that since 2013 VAT paid by beneficiaries that are public bodies acting as public authority is NOT eligible)
− other:
− in-kind contributions for free are allowed, but cost-neutral, i.e., they cannot be declared as cost
− project websites: communication costs for presenting the project on the participants’ websites or social media accounts are eligible; costs for separate project websites are not eligible
Reporting and payment arrangements
The reporting and payment arrangements are fixed in the Grant Agreement (Data Sheet, point 4 and art 21 and 22).
After grant signature, you will normally receive a prefinancing to start working on the project (float of normally 50% of the maximum grant amount; exceptionally less or no prefinancing). The prefinancing will be paid 30 days from entry into force/10
days before starting date/financial guarantee (if required) — whichever is the latest.
There will be no interim payment.
Payment of the balance: At the end of the project, we will calculate your final grant amount. If the total of earlier payments is higher than the final grant amount, we will ask you (your coordinator) to pay back the difference (recovery).
All payments will be made to the coordinator.
Please be aware that payments will be automatically lowered if one of your consortium members has outstanding debts towards the EU (granting authority or other EU bodies). Such debts will be offset by us — in line with the conditions set out in the Grant Agreement (see art 22).
Please also note that you are responsible for keeping records on all the work done and the costs declared.
Prefinancing guarantees
If a prefinancing guarantee is required, it will be fixed in the Grant Agreement (Data Sheet, point 4). The amount will be set during grant preparation and it will normally be equal or lower than the prefinancing for your grant.
The guarantee should be in euro and issued by an approved bank/financial institution established in an EU Member State. If you are established in a non-EU country and would like to provide a guarantee from a bank/financial institution in your country, please contact us (this may be exceptionally accepted, if it offers equivalent security).
Amounts blocked in bank accounts will NOT be accepted as financial guarantees.
Prefinancing guarantees are formally NOT linked to individual consortium members, which means that you are free to organise how to provide the guarantee amount (by one or several beneficiaries, for the overall amount or several guarantees for partial amounts, by the beneficiary concerned or by another beneficiary, etc). It is however important that the requested amount is covered and that the guarantee(s) are sent to us in time to make the prefinancing (scanned copy via Portal AND original by post).
If agreed with us, the bank guarantee may be replaced by a guarantee from a third party.
The guarantee will be released at the end of the grant, in accordance with the conditions laid down in the Grant Agreement