The campaign ‘Choose Green – more love, less food waste’ demonstrated how to prepare delicious, creative, and affordable meals while encouraging citizens to share tips for reducing waste and food leftovers. The finale of the educational campaign was marked at the student cafeteria Odeon, where representatives of Nestlé and campaign ambassadors distributed 1,500 free zero waste meals to students.
For comparison, if the food waste generated in preparing student meals had become waste, its greenhouse gas emissions would be equivalent to enough electricity for a household for nearly 16 days.
The goal is for the Choose Green initiative to remain a long-term socially responsible project of Nestlé, involving more stakeholders each year, from individuals to the private sector and decision-makers, as well as citizens who will positively influence the reduction of food waste.
– Although primarily aimed at millennials and Generation Z, the Choose Green campaign has shown that we can all learn a lot when it comes to reducing food waste. By throwing away some of the most expensive groceries, Croatian households generate over 216,000 tons of food waste annually, significantly impacting greenhouse gas emissions. For Nestlé, less waste means more love, so through campaigns like this, we want to actively participate in promoting solidarity, sustainability, and green choices. There is no planet B, so our plan is to set sustainability benchmarks in every segment of our business, said Laurentiu-Florin Dimitriu, General Director of Nestlé for Croatia, Slovenia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
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In addition to preventing food waste contributing to environmental protection, it also saves household budgets. In this vein, the Choose Green recipes were created.
– The dishes we cooked according to zero food waste principles included potato and carrot soup, chicken arancini, and veggie lasagna. By preparing and maximizing the use of 92.5 kilograms of surplus meat and vegetables for new meals, we reduced food waste and thus our impact on environmental pollution. According to the reactions and the number of students gathered, they seem positively surprised by our culinary activation in their favorite cafeteria. The good news is that everything they tasted today can be easily prepared at home, said chef Mate Janković, who also designed the recipes.
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