Thanks to Interreg funding and transnational cooperation, FoodLoops connected organisations that would otherwise likely deal with school food waste separately. Moreover, the project established cooperation formats that will continue beyond the project. For example, Gdańsk (PL) will build on its Green Education Programme and advance steps towards green school certification, while Wuppertal (DE) will continue its Circular Food Round Table.

Rather than working with individual schools alone, FoodLoops strengthened the capacity of organisations able to drive wider change. Municipalities improved coordination with schools, caterers, and waste-management service providers, while caterers introduced better menu planning, student feedback, and food-waste monitoring.

The compost lesson

How yesterday’s leftovers become tomorrow’s harvest – right in a school garden

At a primary school in Gdańsk, Poland, that’s exactly what’s happening. Instead of throwing away food scraps, 40 pupils from Primary School No. 61 teamed up with a local farmer to transform 2,000 litres of organic waste into hot compost. By tracking temperature and moisture, they turned food waste into fertile soil that now nourishes the school’s garden with potato beds, experiencing first-hand the full journey from plate to compost – and back to food.

The idea reaches far beyond one school garden. Through the Interreg Baltic Sea Region project FoodLoops, schools, municipalities, farmers and caterers across Finland, Germany, Lithuania and Poland are rethinking what happens after lunch. By putting circular food systems into practice, they’re not only cutting food waste but also showing children that sustainability can start with something as ordinary as a potato peel.

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