At a Glance
Location: Poland
Impact Areas: Employment Generation, Placement, Food Aid, Reducing Food Waste
People Supported:
NEETs, Long-term Unemployed, Refugees, Women, Individuals at risk of Social Exclusion, Individuals in need of Food Assistance, Children
Joined NESsT Portfolio:
2023
Overview
Globally, almost 1.3 billion tons of food – one-third of the total food produced – goes to waste each year. In Poland, approximately 5 million tons of food is wasted annually, with consumers accounting for nearly 60% of the waste.
Founded in 2000, the Olsztyn Food Bank (OFB) is a non-profit entity based in Poland with a mission to save food from waste. After acquiring food from excess reserves, OFB donates it to social organizations that provide basic needs support to excluded communities.
In parallel to its food aid services, OFB promotes innovative and inclusive food solutions in the community through educational workshops to promote zero-waste cooking, good shopping habits, and conscious eating. It also runs training and placement programs for youth and individuals facing long-term unemployment, providing courses in professional culinary skills, among others, enhancing their employability and supporting them to enter the labor market.
After the war broke out in Ukraine, OFB has focused its efforts on supporting refugee women to find jobs. The association offers food and catering training, childcare during classes, in addition to psychological support, language courses, as well as help with CV creation and job matching. In 2022, 40% of attendees found long-term employment in the food service sector.
Results & Impact
800
people received professional activation support
100
refugee women received vocational training in 2022
480
refugees/migrants placed in jobs by 2027
“We specialize in acquiring and distributing food to those in need in the Warmia and Mazury region. We rescue food from being wasted, educate people about proper nutrition and food waste prevention, and promote social and vocational activation. Each year, we help around 80,000 individuals, delivering 2,500 tons of food with a value of over 4 million euros.”
NESsT Investment
OFB operates a fully accessible hostel, a modern coworking and event space, and a restaurant and catering service under one roof. This vibrant, multi-purpose space known as ‘Social Forge’ is a hub for promoting attitudes around healthy nutrition and sustainable food solutions, with regular waste-free workshops for B2B and B2C clients.
NESsT’s patient capital will be used to scale OFB’s commercial operations to include event production and all-year-round catering services for schools, elderly care homes, and external events. NESsT portfolio managers will offer tailored business guidance to strengthen OFB’s strategy and financial management, define solid team structures and DEI policies, and implement a CRM system to boost customer attraction and retention efforts.
As part of the Refugee Employment Initiative, OFB will have access to mentoring by NESsT, IKEA Social Entrepreneurship and Cisco Foundation to develop social impact tracking and data collection tools. OFB is also taking steps to track its carbon footprint to measure the thousands of tons of food it prevents from being wasted every year, and will additionally install solar panels in the near future to save costs and further lessen its environmental impact.
NESsT’s grant will bolster OFB’s job placement and counseling services for refugees and other marginalized groups to include more specialized culinary courses and advanced language classes. The enterprise plans to ensure the job readiness of at least 110 refugees and place them in the open market this year.
