What is Food Bank

The Food Banks are private institutions of social solidarity that fight against the wastefulness of food products and distribute freely such products to persons in need. The belief of Food Banks is based on the free aspect, on giving and on voluntary.
The ten Food Banks from Portugal are collecting and distributing, during the year, tens of thousands of tons of products, participating in the actions of 1048 Portuguese institutions. The Food Banks are situated in Porto, Aveiro, Cova da Beira, Coimbra, Abrantes, Leiria-Fátima, Lisboa, Setúbal, Évora and Ponta Delgada (Açores). The Portuguese Federation of Food Banks coordinates all the campaigns.
The last campaign promoted by the Food Bank of Portugal took place on 6 and 7 of May. The result was a good one: 1.135 tons of food, 130 more than in the same campaign of 2005.
The first Food Bank in the world was created in Phoenix, Arizona, from United States of America, in 1966. In Europe, the idea was brought in 1984. In Portugal, it arrived in 1992 with the opening of the Food Bank from Lisbon.