Food

The EU School Programme for Fruit, Vegetables, and Milk aims to promote awareness for a healthy diet among children and adolescents in educational institutions. All Austrian schools and kindergartens can participate in the EU School Programme and - as long as funds are available - receive a subsidy. 

Food is precious! Nevertheless about 157,000 tonnes of packed and unpacked foodstuffs and food waste are disposed of via the residual waste in Austria every year.

The Rote Kreuz NÖ and the SAM NÖ have thought about how to handle food and published a cookbook.

Foodstuffs are binned all along the value-added chain - for most different reasons (crop damage or transport damage, production defects, not marketable). In all, large amounts of food are thrown away by consumers.

The starting pistol for United Against Waste, a cross-industry platform, was fired in the year 2014 and the programme currently has 35 partners (as of 2016).

United Against Waste is a platform and deals with food waste avoidance in gastronomy, hotels and industrial kitchens. The core business is in the project management and the communication sectors.

The trend towards regionality and the desire to know where food and ingredients come from have reached a new dimension. In response to this trend, numerous different culinary initiatives have been launched in recent years. They make a valuable contribution to regions - but the large number of seals with most different criteria left consumers with a certain disorientation.

Across Austria, around 46,000 holdings market their products directly on the farm. For these farmers, direct marketing is an indispensable source of income. But fresh produce from the region is becoming ever more important for consumers as well.

On behalf of the Federal Ministry for Sustainability and Tourism, the Culinary Network kicked off the Gourmet Festival on 10 May 2019 by presenting the Culinary Strategy Austria, which it had developed jointly with the Federal Provinces.

The voluntary Agreement for the Prevention of Food Waste concluded last year between the Federal Ministry for Sustainability and Tourism and food companies has already led to a substantial reduction in food waste.

The new website of Genuss Regionen, which translates as Regions of Delight, attractively showcases culinary specialties for the purpose of boosting the trend towards regional sourcing of food products.

At the behest of the Federal Ministry for Sustainability and Tourism, AMA-Marketing took over the management of the Genuss Region Österreich brand as of 1 August 2019.