In addition to Saarbrücken, Bochum, Bonn, Dresden, Essen, Frankfurt am Main, Kassel, Kiel, Cologne and Mainz belong to the initiative. The company "Too Good To Go", which operates an app to save surplus food in gastronomy and retail, has founded "Cities Against Food Waste".

According to the Saarland state capital, more than a third of all food is thrown away worldwide, 18 million tonnes per year in Germany alone. In Saarland, 223,000 tonnes of food end up in the rubbish every year, it said. Markus Bradtke, head of Bochum's environmental department, emphasised that everyone throws away an average of 75 kilograms of food per year. "You can achieve a lot with more conscious shopping behaviour or better planning when preparing meals," he emphasised.

"By participating, the twin cities have pledged to actively engage in food rescue over the next two years and thus make an important contribution to greater sustainability locally," the Saarland state capital announced. According to the information, the campaign is also intended to be an exchange platform for food rescue examples that could be taken up throughout Germany.

Saarbrücken's mayor Conradt stressed that by joining the initiative he wanted to encourage as many people and businesses as possible to join in. "We already work closely with the local foodsharing initiative and the food banks and want to significantly increase the proportion of rescued food through the initiative," said the Lord Mayor. First, he said, he wanted to write to Saarbrücken's food retailers; schools and day-care centres were to be introduced to the topic with a competition, and an exhibition was planned. "And we also want to check whether we can use rescued food at our own events," Conradt emphasised.

Original text: (epd) - Translation: Mareike Graepel