Wiener Tafel

06 June 2013

The Wiener Tafel is a food distribution service which was founded in 1999 in Vienna, Austria, following the German example of such as service, Die Tafeln. Having only 360 € of starting capital for the first 3 years, the service was based on the commitment of voluntary workers in the beginning. Only since 2006 the Wiener Tafel has hired personnel to manage the ever growing logistics. Today it has a fixed staff of around 10 employees but is still mainly based on the work of around 290 volunteers.

The Wiener Tafel collects food and toiletries from commerce, markets and industry in order to provide it to people in need. Almost on a daily basis the institution bring the goods to homeless shelters, refugee asylums and mother-child homes. It thereby functions as a bridge between abundance and shortage, considering that food waste due to pilot production, overproduction, stocks with close date of expiry, and goods with labelling errors or with small packaging damages is a huge problem in Austria too. Furthermore there are 993,000 people in risk of poverty living in Austria, a quarter of them being children. The Wiener Tafel helps these people in need by providing them with good quality food almost every day and is thus fighting poverty in an efficient and unbureaucratic way. As they are delivering the food directly from the donors to the social institutions, there is no need to store food. This makes the concept even more environmentally-friendly.

In 2011, around 12,000 people in more than 80 social institutions could be provided with food. This was possible due to the commitment of around 290 volunteers, 160 associate enterprises (donors) and the operation of 5 vans. Thereby about 280 Tonnes of food and about 20 Tonnes of toiletries could be preserved from being thrown away. The Wiener Tafel has become an important and decisive instituion of the Viennian social landscape and was awarded with several prizes for their work.

For more information: Ulli Schmidt, chief executive: +43 (1) 236 56 87 DW 006 or +43 (0) 650 901 00 06 (mobile), ulli.schmidt@wienertafel.at

General data

Country	Austria
RA/LA	Vienna
Population	1,721,573 (Vienna 2011)
Waste generated (kg/inh/y)	336.87 kg/inh/y (Vienna, municipal solid waste 2009); approx. 40.5 kg/inh/y (Vienna, food waste)

Waste prevention activity data

Waste flow	Bio-waste : Food waste
Strategy	Act against food waste
Scale	Roll out
Year(s) of tde project development	1999
Participation target	About 325,000 people in Vienna would qualify for this intiative (19,2 % of population).
Waste reduction target	/
Participation rate	12.000 people per day in 80 social services/ welfare facilities received food from Wiener Tafel in 2011, 290 voluntary workers (all 2011)
Waste quantities reduced	414 t food distributed in 2011 (240g/inh), +25 % compared to 2010
Budget	Start budget: 360 € starting capital for the first 3 years. Budget in 2011: 350.000 €. Staff: 10 employees working on the scheme (+ 290 volunteers)