Redistribution of Surplus Food as a Pathway to Societal Inclusion for the Socioeconomically Disadvantaged? Traditional and Complementary Food Rescue Organisations in Germany

Titelangaben

Wiegel, Silvia:
Redistribution of Surplus Food as a Pathway to Societal Inclusion for the Socioeconomically Disadvantaged? Traditional and Complementary Food Rescue Organisations in Germany.
2025
Veranstaltung: Food Charity, Welfare State Transformations, and Affective Economies: Critical Engagements , 21.-23.05.2025 , Vienna.
(Veranstaltungsbeitrag: Kongress/Konferenz/Symposium/Tagung , Vortrag )

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Abstract

Demographical shifts and rising cost of living in Germany have contributed to an increasing number of individuals unable to meet their nutritional needs. Simultaneously, an estimated 4.4 milllion tons of food waste are generated annually across the food value chain (incl. out-of-home consumption). In this field of socioecological tension, for more than 30 years, non-profit food rescue organisations have been emerging constantly. Alongside traditional food rescue organisations like Tafeln, newer, complementary organisations like Foodsharing have emerged, prompting a reevaluation of how food redistribution practices target socioeconomically disadvantaged population groups. However, the organisational differences between traditional and complementary food rescue organisations remain underexplored, particularly in terms of their goals, practices, and contributions to food security and societal inclusion.
This study draws on 24 qualitative interviews with managers of local Foodsharing groups, Tafeln, and other food rescue organisations, to examine their goals, practices and inclusion contributions. In particular, it investigates the behavioural rules as well as communicative and redistributional practices that users or ‘clients’ need to undergo to guarantee their future participation in these organisations’ outputs and outcomes. These rules and practices are shaped by externally imposed hygiene requirements and cooperating businesses’ profit goals. Thereby, they also seem to reproduce the coexistence of conflicting goals towards the target groups, either formally or informally established, and by this, they secure the organisations’ existence. However, these rules and practices evoque mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion side by side: On the one hand, volunteers are trying to consider the daily material burdens, physical (health) needs and social attitudes of their target group based on their sociodemographic similarity. On the other hand, the access to food rescue organisations is limited as socioeconomically deprived people do not always seem to meet the behavioural and communicative expectations, material/physical abilities, and mental willingness to accept the redistributed food. These intra-organisational negotiations become especially important in times of rising numbers of users and declining amounts of edible food donations to ensure the survival of each food rescue organisation.