What Happens to the Food an Erasmus+ Group Leaves Behind
There is a moment at the end of every mobility that nobody photographs. The group has gone to the airport, the apartment is being cleaned, and on the kitchen shelf there is food: unopened packets of pasta and rice, a sealed bottle of oil, tins, a jar of coffee that was never started. Bought for three weeks, and not finished.
Multiply that by every group a hosting organisation welcomes in a year.
Until recently, in our case, almost all of it went in the bin. Not because anyone decided it should, but for a much more ordinary reason: nobody had set up a procedure.
As the final stage of our Circular Harvest project, we built one. This article explains what it is, who made it possible, and how any other organisation in Malta can set up the same thing — because the second part is the point.
Why this is a real problem and not a small one
Malta generates more municipal waste per person than most of Europe and recycles a smaller share of it than almost anywhere in the Union. On an island where land is the scarcest resource there is, most of what is not recovered goes to landfill.
A significant share of the people generating household waste here are not residents. They are tourists, seasonal workers, language students and Erasmus+ participants, living in apartments for weeks at a time and then leaving. The sector that accommodates them — hosting organisations, language schools, guesthouses — produces a steady, predictable stream of surplus food that nobody has been collecting.
It is not a dramatic quantity from any single apartment. It is a dependable one, every few weeks, all year.
What we changed
The change itself is unglamorous, which is why it works. At the end of a mobility, food that is still sealed, unopened and within its date is set aside rather than discarded with the rest, and passed on to three Maltese organisations that put it where it is needed.
Only sealed, unopened products are donated. Anything already opened, anything fresh and anything past its date is not collected — it goes out with the rest, exactly as before. This is not a detail we added for caution: it is the condition that makes the whole thing work, because an organisation receiving food cannot assess what happened to an open packet, and a bag that has to be discarded at the other end costs them time they do not have.
No new staff, no budget line, no equipment. One step added to a checklist that already existed.
The three organisations
We want to use this article to introduce them properly, because all three deserve to be better known — and because an organisation reading this may want to contact them directly.
Friends of the Earth Malta — Food Connect
Food Connect is a food-sharing app. A business with surplus — a restaurant, a hotel, a bakery, a shop — lists what it has, sets a collection time, and anyone who needs it claims it through the app and comes to pick it up.
It runs in Malta as part of an EU LIFE-funded project connecting food systems across Southern Europe, piloted alongside Portugal and Cyprus. The practical appeal is that it removes the logistics: there is no scheduling by email and no van to organise. Surplus becomes a few taps on a phone.
Foodbank Lifeline Foundation
The Foodbank prepares and distributes weekly packs of non-perishable food to households in difficulty, reaching dozens of families every week. Referrals come through social services, Caritas, Sedqa and parishes, so the food reaches people who have already been identified as needing it.
It is run by volunteers and funded by donations. For anyone with sealed dry goods and tins — which is exactly what an emptied apartment produces — this is the most direct route there is.
YMCA Malta
YMCA Malta works with people experiencing homelessness and runs shelter services across the island, providing not only a bed but the structure around it — support, stability and a route onwards.
How to set this up yourself
If you run a school, a guesthouse, a hosting organisation or anything else in Malta where people arrive, stay a few weeks and leave, you have the same surplus we had. What follows is the whole method.
Add one line to the checkout checklist. Whoever closes an apartment sets aside food that is sealed, unopened and within its date into one bag. Sealed only — if a packet has been opened, it is not donated.
Tell participants at the welcome meeting. Explain the rule on day one: anything they have not opened can be left out to be donated. Most of them then leave things on the counter on purpose instead of throwing them away themselves.
Pick one route and contact them. The app suits irregular, small quantities. A foodbank suits sealed dry goods and tins in larger batches. A shelter suits a regular, predictable drop. You do not need all three to begin.
Confirm their conditions once, and follow them. Sealed, unopened and in date is the baseline everywhere. Opened packets, fresh or chilled food and anything past its date are not accepted. Ask each organisation directly rather than guessing — some have further restrictions of their own.
Fix the moment, not the intention. Tie it to something that already happens on a date — the apartment handover, the end-of-mobility closure. Good intentions without a fixed moment quietly stop after two months.
That is the entire system. It took us a research project to arrive at it, and it will take you an afternoon.
Why this came out of an Erasmus+ project
Circular Harvest did not start as a food project. It started with our own staff going abroad on job shadowing and training mobilities, and coming back with approaches we had not used before.
That became research into the circular economy, which became a full guide, which turned out to be too long for the students it was written for — so it became a short brochure instead, distributed to participants when they arrive.
And then it became this: a change in how we actually operate, which is the only stage that costs nothing and lasts after the project closes.
That progression — staff mobility, learning, research, resource, and finally a change in practice — is what a mobility project is supposed to produce. It is also the part that is easiest to skip.
Start small. Think circular.
The food left behind by our participants will not solve food poverty in Malta. It is a few bags at a time.
But those bags were going to be thrown away, and the only thing standing between the bin and a family was a procedure. If you are in this sector in Malta, all three organisations above are already set up to receive what you have — sealed, unopened and in date.
Thank you to Friends of the Earth Malta, Foodbank Lifeline Foundation and YMCA Malta for making it this straightforward.
Erasmus+ project 2025-1-MT01-KA122-ADU-000340998
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or EUPA. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
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