It may sound almost ridiculous, but that doesn’t make it less true. While 4.6 billion euros worth of food is thrown away in the Netherlands every year, 1.4 million people in our country live below the poverty line and cannot afford a sufficiently healthy diet. [Filmed at TEDxMaastricht]
Educated as industrial designer, Fiona Jongejans believes that design and creativity can play a bigger role in our society today. It can be a catalyst for social innovation and bring people and organisations together. This year, she decided to put her energy into one of the many challenges our society is currently facing.
Fiona Jongejans has set herself the goal of bridging the gap between food waste and food poverty. She argues that we must shorten the distance between producer and consumer in order to give back value to our food and by doing so, to enhance the sustainability of our food chain. The real cure to the problem of food waste is to reconsider our behaviour as consumers: by changing the way we buy, plan and cook our meals.
Together with three other young entrepreneurs, Fiona Jongejans has set up the SUR+ project, an online platform aiming to connect local food banks and fruit and vegetable farmers in a very simple and low threshold manner.
This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at ted.com/tedx