On the 16th of November FoodWIN organised an innovation workshop together with the city of Bruges to reduce food waste in healthcare institutions. FoodWIN supported the health care institutions in measuring food waste and coached them in this innovation process to turn their data into actions.

During this one-day workshop, personnel of the healthcare institutions  together with food waste experts go through a creative process to develop solutions to their challenge. The workshop is based on the concept of a Food Waste Challenge, a method developed by FoodWIN.

Bruges counts nineteen health care institutions. Four of which took part in our innovation workshop:

  • hospital AZ Sint Jan, counting 909 beds on 3 campuses;
  • hospital AZ Sint Lucas, counting 412 beds;
  • Ruddersstove, a catering operator serving six care institutions related to the public centre for social welfare (OCMW); and
  • day center ‘De Kade ’ which houses 158 patients of which 112 are children.

During this day participants go through following steps:

Experiencing: participants experience how much and why food gets wasted in order to get a proper understanding of the challenge.

Inspiration: project partners and experts from outside the institution share existing solutions that could apply to this challenge.

Ideation: participants take part in a big brainstorming session to create new ideas to this problem.

Pitching: each team presents its solution to a jury of experts. The best solutions are selected and further developed.