Opinion of the month: “There is an urgent need for ready-to-eat food”

André Pilling: When Russia began its large-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February, this presented a completely new situation and new challenges for the bilateral cooperation project Agriretail Ukraine (ATU), which is supported by the Federal Ministry for Food and Agriculture. The project team drew on its established contacts with German food retailers to raise donations. Building on this initiative, the Federal Ministry for Food and Agriculture set up German Food Bridge, a coordination office for food donations, at the beginning of March as an integral part of the ATU project.

André Pilling: The coordination office was created with the aim of rapidly bringing food aid to where it is most urgently needed in Ukraine, thus contributing to alleviating the humanitarian crisis the war has caused. Since 22 March, the Hamburg Chamber of Commerce has made the coordination office team’s work much easier with the provision of free office space.

The coordination office processes official requests from Ukraine and donation offers from companies, businesses and initiatives within the German food industry. Since some of the donors do not have their own logistics, the coordination office, in cooperation with DB Cargo, organises the free transport of the goods to Polish interim storage facilities on the donors’ behalf. From there, the donations are transported to Ukraine by rail.

André Pilling: Seventy-five percent of the donations received go to state authorities and 25 percent to NGOs in Ukraine. We are now cooperating with more than 48 NGOs, including some that can manage the logistics side. With their support, donations from Germany have already been successfully delivered to Mykolaiv, Odessa, Kharkov, Donetsk, Luhansk, Irpin and Bucha.

An important task of the coordination office is also to provide information about the project and attract new donors in order to meet the ever-growing demand.
Starting with the first delivery on 2 March, 389 trucks have been sent to different parts of Ukraine and 11,307 food pallets have been delivered through 30 June. Sixty-five donor organisations have participated in the initiative to date.

The number of donors and their names, where disclosed, are published on the website of the Federal Ministry for Food and Agriculture, which is updated regularly.

André Pilling: The coordination office primarily operates two distribution channels. The first is the state channel, with which we have been cooperating since the first shipment. In coordination with the official Ukrainian state institutions, the Ukrainian Ministry of Agriculture and the Ukrainian Ministry for Development of Economy and Trade in particular, our humanitarian aid is delivered to a central warehouse in Poland, where it is then loaded onto Ukrainian railway containers. These are then transported across the western Ukrainian border to the individual regions.

On 22 April, in cooperation with the German-Polish Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the German-Ukrainian Chamber of Industry and Commerce, we opened another logistics centre near the Polish-Ukrainian border. Through this hub, we use trucks and vans to distribute goods to NGOs, which then transport the goods, partly directly and partly via other distribution points, to all regions of Ukraine that are in need of food aid. We are currently receiving requests from 15 regions in Ukraine where we are able to ship deliveries. This does not include occupied territories such as Mariupol, as we cannot obtain reliable information about the intended use there.

André Pilling: So far, we have received over 389 truckloads in donations. There remains an urgent need for non-refrigerated, ready-to-eat food in particular, such as canned food and preserves of any kind, baby food, bread with a long shelf life and snacks such as nuts, crisps, protein or chocolate. Beverages such as water, juice, tea and (instant) coffee are also needed, as are staples: sugar, salt, flour, rice, bulgur wheat, oats, couscous and cooking oil. Fresh fruit and vegetables with a long shelf life are also needed.

If necessary, we can also arrange for the donated food to be collected in complete truckloads, if the donor is unable to arrange their own logistics for delivery to the hubs in Poland.

André Pilling: There are three Ukrainian women on my team: one at our office in Hamburg, one in Poland and one in Kyiv, and they are all still in contact with relatives and acquaintances in Ukraine. They report daily about the great deprivations and suffering that many people are experiencing there, especially women and children.

I have also had many conversations with representatives of the NGOs we work with at our hub in Dębica, on the Polish-Ukrainian border. During these conversations, what has been repeatedly pressed home is the desperate need in the regions particularly affected by the war and how grateful the people there are for any form of aid. This is also the situation for the high number of refugees and displaced persons in Ukraine.

Since February 24, more than 15.7 million Ukrainians have urgently needed humanitarian aid and protection. Six million people have fled the country, and well over seven million have been displaced within Ukraine. In Zaporizhia, for example, there are now 130,000 refugees from eastern parts of the country who need support. The same situation is being experienced across almost all regions of the country.

André Pilling: An important way to support us is by giving us a platform to raise awareness about the German Food Bridge and our food donations for the people of Ukraine and provide information about the impressive volume of donations already provided. Our German Food Bridge really does rely on the donations, and we thank you and all participating companies for your support. If we can reach even more companies in the food and food retail industry and convince them to donate to our project, we can maintain and, ideally, even increase our shipments to Ukraine. All contact details can be found on the website of the Federal Ministry for Food and Agriculture (BMEL – Internationales – German Food Bridge für Lebensmittelhilfen der Ernährungswirtschaft in die Ukraine). My team and I will be happy to respond to all enquiries.