You know those direct sellers standing outside your local supermarket trying to make you sign something for a good cause when you are hungry and in a hurry? Well, they weren’t «selling» that much anymore.

So we built our own mobile street seller, a way more exiting one. Not to replace the ones we had, but to accompany them in gathering signatures and gaining attention for a food waste law.

BACKGROUND:

Future In Our Hands is a Norwegian NGO that works to reduce food waste, by aiming to update the law to meet the modern sustainable European standard.

The Norwegian grocery stores were throwing away enough food to feed 1/3 of the country's population, and FIOH lacked the public support they needed to get the Norwegian Parliaments attention.

By opening a dumpster grocery chain filled with food waste, we invited the whole nation to dumpster dive legally for the first time.

PRIMARY GOAL:

Get the new food waste law into parliament.

TARGET AUDIENCE:

Politicians and decision makers in the parliament.

APPROACH:

To get the attention of politicians and decision makers, we needed to make a cultural movement among the general public (not just enviromental activists).

Many of the biggest social media influencers of Norway lives in a particular part of Oslo called "Fredensborg", so we decided to figure out how to reach them in a powerful way.

CALL TO ACTION:

The law has expired - sign for a new food waste law

When picking up food, people signed the petition on the spot - either through a QR code on the dumpster or with the help from our people. A lot of people became members too :)

The first Dumpster Deli covered all the major Norwegian news channels from TV as well as Newspapers within 24 hours, generating 4M+ in earned media and reaching 23% of the total population.

But most importantly: We reach our primary goal of getting The Norwegian Parliament invited Future In Our Hands to legislate a new law for the first time. It's being negotiated in the Parliament as we're writing this (!)

- The new food waste law made it it to parliament

- 4.1M+ in earned media

- 23% of total population reached organically

Overall budget, first dumpster: $3620

Dumpster: $600

Sign: $1400

Interior architecture: $1500

Delicious trash shoot:

Silk background (re-used fabric): $100

Cutlery: used or donated, $20

Food: dumpstered, $0

After this more dumpsters have been produced, but the first one sparked the attention needed to reach our goal.

In Norway, you may risk up to three years in prison for dumpster diving.

The food waste law in Norway hasn't changed since the 60's and 80's, and FIOH aims to update the law to meet the modern sustainable European standard.