Background Each year, some 1.3 billion tonnes of food is lost or wasted worldwide, representing one third of all food produced for human consumption. The greatest food waste occurs in high-income countries. In the EU, an estimated 89 million tonnes/yr of food is wasted, coming from households (42%), the manufacturing sector (39%), retail/wholesale (5%) and food service/catering (14%). The environmental impact of this waste is considerable, equating to 170 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent/yr, i.e. 3% of total EU27 greenhouse gas emissions in 2008, as well as placing stress on water and land resources, soil and biodiversity. Costs associated with food waste are enormous (some 2 300 billion euros/yr worldwide, when environmental and social impacts are taken into account). The main causes of food waste include lack of consumer awareness and lack of communication along the supply chain. Anti-waste initiatives typically address only consumers, neglecting the agro-food companies and retailers. Cross-cutting initiatives are therefore necessary. Objectives The LIFE-Food.Waste.StandUp project’s main objective is to raise awareness of surplus food management and food waste prevention among three key actors of the food supply chain: agro-food companies, food retailers and consumers. This will be done by means of a coordinated information campaign, carried out at national and European level. Specific project objectives are to: Promote and disseminate information among agro-food companies and food retailers about existing opportunities and tools for the recovery and donation of unsold food products; Strengthen awareness and knowledge about food waste prevention practices and promote responsible behaviours among all three target groups; Support the implementation of the Italian food waste prevention strategy, contributing to the EU objective to reduce food waste by 30% by 2025; Encourage national and local institutions to introduce incentives for food redistribution (such as tax reliefs and simplified procedures); and Ensure dialogue and knowledge exchange among food supply chain actors in Italy and the EU. The project supports the implementation of the Roadmap to a Resource Efficient Europe, which calls for ambitious action to tackle food waste. Project activities are in synergy with the European Commission’s Circular Economy Package, which puts forward objectives for food waste reduction in the EU and includes a proposal for Member States to develop national food waste prevention strategies to reduce food waste by at least 30% by 2025. The project will contribute to this ambitious goal by supporting the activation and further reinforcement of the existing Italian national food waste prevention programmes. Expected results: The project expects to achieve the following results: Involve at least 20 000 Italian agro-food companies in the anti-food waste awareness campaign; Inform 200 000 food and drink enterprises across the EU about best practices and models for managing and donating surplus food; Improve knowledge of food waste reduction practices in 12 000 food retail outlets; Train 190 local branches of the food industry and retail distribution federations (Federalimentare Servizi and Federdistribuzione respectively) how to prevent food waste; Set up info-points about preventing food waste in 59 cities across 15 regions of Italy. In total, the project expects to inform 500 000 consumers about food waste prevention; Increase by 10% recovery of food waste from agro-food companies and retailers; Increase by 10% the number of new food donors among agro-food companies and retailers; and Increase by 30% (baseline 2012-2014) the number of awareness-raising events on food waste prevention held by food enterprises.