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.

To achieve this, they needed to direct public attention towards the outdated food waste law, and make it known that grocery stores were throwing away enough delicious and perfectly edible food to feed 1/3 of the country's population.

BRIEF:

Get enough public buzz around the outdated food waste law to get Future In Our Hands new law suggestion up to discussion in the Norwegian Parliament.

SITUATION:

The population was tired of hearing about food waste, thinking the food was probably thrown away for a reason.

It was time to break completely with our oftentimes serious and sad category and do something fun.

On a 1 dumpster budget, Norwegian NGO Future In Our Hands managed to make The Norwegian Parliament legislate a new food waste law for the first time.

The campaign surprised people as well as journalists in an era of sad and serious environmental campaigns - proved by nation-wide media coverage and 4.1 Millions earned media within 24 hours, reaching 23% of the population.

The Dumpster Deli launch photo is the most popular social post in Future In Our Hands history.

As the Dumpster went viral, Norway's ministry of health, Norway's biggest food influencers and top politicians visited the Deli either on their own initiative through un-paid invites.

But most importantly: The new law made it to parliament, and Norway is about to update the Food Waste Law for the first time in history.

By hacking the law we were trying to change, we made Dumpster Diving legal for the first time, and invited the whole country to an unusual "shopping trip" where they usually find their groceries.

We first teased the new "grocery chain" called Dumpster Deli, making it look like a new high-end delicious store concept where everything was going to be free, before placing it outside the biggest grocery chains in Norway as a dumpster (right next to their dumpsters).

The OOH installation invited the grocery chains to throw their expired food in our "store" instead of in their own dumpsters so people could pick it up legally, and invited people to pick up whatever they wanted.

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

The outdated food waste law in question is mostly technical and boring, but this one small paragraph stood out. And if there's one subculture that knows exactly how massive and delicious Norway’s food waste problem is, it's dumpster divers.

2. Norway is a wealthy country, and most people are scared of trash.

This added tension to the campaign in this specific local market. NABC target group interviews proved a lot of people still thought the "expired food" in question might have been "thrown away for a good reason".

They needed to see it, feel it, or even better: taste it.