The workshop will bring together researchers, industry representatives and policy experts to explore how food waste, especially canteen and school catering waste, can be prevented, repurposed and valorised through circular solutions across different countries and regions. A central focus will be on insect bioconversion as one promising pathway within a broader food waste management hierarchy that also includes prevention, redistribution, composting, anaerobic digestion and fermentation cascades. The workshop will connect project foodCIRCUS pilot experience and stakeholder engagement with emerging insect-based valorisation approaches and provide a platform to discuss safe substrate use, hygiene and regulatory constraints. Participants will gain comparative insights into different valorisation technologies for canteen food waste, including new data from Central European pilots.
The event is organized by project foodCIRCUS as a side event of IFW 2026 (https://www.ifw2026.org/)
foodCIRCUS is an Interreg Central Europe project that addresses food waste in school canteens and kindergartens through prevention, awareness raising, optimisation, redistribution, and circular valorisation of unavoidable leftovers. The project brings together partners from several Central European countries to test pilot actions, generate evidence, and develop a shared strategy for reducing school food waste while exploring innovative uses such as insect feed, biogas, and bioplastics.
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