Coordinating food donations transparently
Sector: Tertiary sector · Industry: Religious and charitable organisations · Organisation: UNDP Serbia, Delhaize Serbia, Food Bank Belgrade · Maturity level: Production
UNDP Serbia developed the Plate by Plate platform together with Delhaize Serbia and Food Bank Belgrade for the structured recording of food donations. The solution, operational since February 2021, connects retail chains directly with local charitable organisations. An integrated blockchain technology documents the entire handover process in a tamper-proof and transparent manner.
Documentation status
- Project status: Production — Donation platform in operational use since 2021; implementation is documented, without transferring impact metrics that are not clearly substantiated.
- Evidence: Evidence medium
- Editorial review: SapientBlock Redaktion, 24 October 2026
Description
UNDP Serbia initiated the Plate by Plate project to efficiently and traceably channel surplus food from retail to social institutions. The digital platform replaces manual lists and confusing handover processes with a structured, transparent recording of all relevant goods items. This gives retail companies and charitable actors a shared operational basis for effectively combating food waste.
The United Nations Development Programme in Serbia designed the solution together with the retailer Delhaize Serbia and Food Bank Belgrade. Since its launch in February 2021, the platform has served as a central tool for coordinating daily donation offers between supermarket branches and charitable organisations. Through the use of blockchain technology, every step from provision to successful handover is logged in an immutable manner. This prevents misdirection and ensures that donated food demonstrably reaches eligible recipients. Although ongoing operations and functionality are thoroughly documented, the accessible sources do not contain independently verified aggregated volume and impact data.
Perspectives
B2B — organisations perspective
The application offers companies a reliable platform for handling CSR activities and reducing disposal costs. Donation processes can be logged in an audit-proof manner and demonstrated comprehensively to both internal and external auditors.
Employees perspective
Staff at branch level can digitally register donation goods with minimal time expenditure and release them for collection. Volunteer helpers confirm receipt via mobile devices, eliminating time-consuming coordination by phone or paper receipts.
Benefits
General
- Complete and tamper-proof tracking of all donation handovers
- Reduction of coordination effort between retailers and distribution organisations
- Increased transparency in the process of passing on food
B2B — organisations
- Legally sound and auditable documentation for companies' own sustainability reports
- Acceleration of internal processes for removing intact surplus stock
Employees
- Significant reduction in manual documentation steps at branch level
- Quick clarification of collection times and contacts via the platform
Challenges
General
- Required training of staff and volunteers in using the system
- Dependence on reliable data maintenance in the participating retail branches
B2B — organisations
- Integration into existing inventory management systems and stocktaking processes
Employees
- Additional recording effort during ongoing shift operations in case of staff shortages
Technology foundation
The platform uses an immutable distributed ledger to log transactions and status changes of food donations between supermarkets and charitable organisations in a tamper-proof manner.
Implementation examples
Plate by Plate food donation platform
The allocation of surplus food previously often failed due to a lack of oversight and non-transparent manual processes. The aim was to create a reliable interface to avoid waste while simultaneously easing the burden on logistics.
UNDP Serbia implemented a digital platform for the transparent distribution of food donations together with Delhaize Serbia and Food Bank Belgrade. The solution uses blockchain technology to traceably record handovers from supermarkets to charitable organisations.
The IT team of UNDP Serbia developed the Plate by Plate solution in close partnership with the retail chain Delhaize Serbia and the regional organisation Food Bank Belgrade. Since February 2021, the system has enabled the coordinated passing on of unsold, edible food to local charitable recipients. Through the integration of distributed ledger technology, the registration, provision and handover of goods are documented in a tamper-proof manner. Operational functionality is well documented, while overarching metrics on total volume are not separately reported in the sources.
Eliminating unclear responsibilities in goods handover and preventing loss of trust through tamper-proof records.
Tags
Food donations, Traceability, Charitable work, Logistics, Transparency
Sources
Related use cases
- Blockchain-based transparency for cryptocurrency donations — Bank Frick in Kooperation mit europäischen NGOs
- Old Stone Church Real Estate Tokenization — One Hope of Colorado in Partnerschaft mit REtokens und Polymesh
- VR Church - Virtual Church — VR Church (gegründet von Pastor DJ Soto), genutzt auf AltSpaceVR (Microsoft)
- Collecting visitor benefits in a theme park — Universal Studios, MoonPay
- Tracing coffee beans transparently — Toks Restaurantes, SIMBA Chain, University of Notre Dame