Foodsharing i Östersund

A few things about Foodsharing in Östersund (Sweden), how I started and what kind of challenges, ideas and projects we had so far. I’ll start and try to get some information together.

I started in February to share the idea of Foodsharing with people I knew, created a facebook group and held 2 meetings to inform people (only 4-6 ppl showed up). I also made a logo for Foodsharing Östersund (FSosd) At the moment I am the main the person who plans, organises and has an overview. But this is slowly changing and developing. (I am from Germany and only in Östersund for 1 year to study there, I do not speak Swedish well and as I am leaving in January 2019, I am looking to make FSosd independent from me :D)

At the moment we have two running regular cooperations in Östersund. One with a bakery (3x a week) and one with a supermarket “ICA” (3x a week)

Communication

We communicate via 2 facebook groups, one for everybody and one for people who are interested in doing some more organising. Also we use Telegram for last minute communication and karrot, as it has a chat function now, yay!!

Managing pickups

From the beginning, all pickups were only available via karrot.world. This is a good way to have an overview on how many people are actually active. Also it is a much better way of communication than Facebook.

Problems

As the connection with people is mainly via internet (other than for example in Germany where you need to go to a meeting before you can do pickups officially) it is quite hard to convey the principles of foodsharing and to create a feeling of responsibility in the individual foodsavers. At the moment people more often just don't show up to a pick up. We don't have any rules about what happens if somebody does not show up, as we also do not have a hierarchy really. I wonder how we can make this a little better, without creating a penalty system. or is it necessary? :frowning:

Cooperation with other initiatives

A very big help for us is that some initiatives cooperate with FSosd and support us. SMICE and Studieförbundet Vuxenskolan (SV) are our main partners. FSosd is a “study circle” at SV and they print posters and flyers for us. Also FSosd can be found on both websites. Also we are in connection with PUSHsverige (an initiative for young people that supports sustainable activism) and with a few others.

Promotion

We had some events to promote Foodsharing:

• a brunch
• we screened the movie “just eat it” (in a community cinema, the screening license was donated by the producers after asking for it nicely)
• a sharing station at a one day festival in town (we managed to get 4 “one time cooperations” just for this event)
• I hold presentations on markets, events and where ever I can, through the cooperations with initiatives I get invited quite regularly now
• a radio report about Foodsharing Östersund in Swedish

Plans and Ideas

• a website for FSosd
• making FSosd a “förening” (official initiative, association) ?? Pros and Cons?
• getting more people on board to share the responsibilities
• having regular meetings?

_This article was first published as a forum post on the foodsaving worldwide community forums. The thread includes more statements from Teddy as well as other people and you can find it here.