EU support to Stakeholders to improve measurement of food waste and help implement food waste prevention in their operations and organisation - 2026-2027

Section 6 of the Call Document states that proposals must relate to activities taking place in eligible countries — i.e. EU Member States (including OCTs). This applies regardless of which entity carries out the activity or in what capacity it participates. Activities physically or operationally carried out in a non-eligible country therefore fall outside the scope of the call and are not eligible for funding.

As indicated in the call text, specifically Section 13 on the cumulation of funding / no double funding, the participation in 2 different proposals under the same topic is permissible, provided that the two proposals relate to separate actions, the actions and costs are clearly delineated and separated for each grant and it does not result in a duplication of funding should both proposals be selected.

The call does not state specific limitations to subcontracting, therefore, an entity based in Israel may cover the role of subcontractor in a grant as long as all applicable procurement rules and requirements set out in the call are respected.

As an additional note, the Commission’s Guidelines on the eligibility of Israeli entities and their activities in the territories occupied by Israel since June 1967, for grants, prizes and financial instruments funded by the EU from 2014 onwards, provide for specific eligibility requirements applicable to Israeli entities established in such territories. With regard to grants, Section 6 of these Guidelines states that their scope of application covers all applicants and beneficiaries, irrespective of their role (sole beneficiary, coordinator or co-beneficiary) as well as entities participating in the action on a no-cost basis and affiliated entities. However, the same section goes further reiterating that this does not include contractors or sub-contractors selected by grant beneficiaries in conformity with procurement rules.

Section 6 of the call document mentions that legal entities from countries that are not EU Member State (including overseas countries and territories (OCTs)) are exceptionally eligible for funding, if the granting authority considers their participation essential for the implementation of the action.

Such provision needs to be read in conjunction with the SMP Regulation, which under Article 9(6) provides that non-associated third countries are exceptionally eligible for funding for actions concerning animal diseases and plant pests that have a substantial impact on the Union.

The call in subject is not aimed at funding such actions. The conclusion is that entities established in Ukraine, which is non-associated to the SMP Food Programme, are not eligible for exceptional funding under this call.

Yes, a SME is an eligible applicant.

Section 6 (Consortium composition) requires that, in a multi-beneficiary consortium, one of the beneficiaries — i.e. a signatory to the Grant Agreement — must be an SME representative, as defined in EU Recommendation 2003/361. An SME participating only as an associated partner or subcontractor does not sign the Grant Agreement and therefore does not satisfy this requirement.

In principle, no. Under Section 6 of the Call Document, eligible participants must be established in an eligible country, i.e. an EU Member State (including OCTs). Türkiye is not on that list.

The call document SMP-FOOD-2026-FW-STAKEHOLDERS-PJ - call-fiche_smp-food-2026-fw-stakeholders-pj_en.pdfPDF – provides information on this topic (section 6 of the call document)

The call is open to both mono-beneficiaries as well as to multi-beneficiaries (consortium). In case of consortia, one of the beneficiaries should be a SME representative. Multi-stakeholder consortia can be private or public-private collaborations.

There are no requirements regarding the minimum or maximum number of beneficiaries or whether they must be established in different eligible countries.

Eligible participants (eligible countries):

In order to be eligible, the applicants (beneficiaries and affiliated entities) must:

− be legal entities (public or private bodies)

− be from an eligible country, i.e.: EU Member State (including overseas countries and territories (OCTs)).

The costs for volunteers (i.e persons who freely work for an organisation, on a non-compulsory basis and without being paid ) is not an eligible cost under the SMP Food Programme and accordingly, beneficiaries and affiliated entities cannot charge volunteer costs.

As a general rule, in-kind contributions provided free of charge by a third party are not eligible costs under SMP Food and cannot be declared as costs of the action (Section 10 of the call document, “Budget categories and cost eligibility rules”, and Article 6.3 of the SMP Food Model Grant Agreement).

Based on Article 6.2.A.1 of the SMP Food Model Grant APDFgreement (MGAPDF) and as further explained in the Annotated Grant Agreement (AGAPDF), on pages 50-60, cost for employees must be declared as actual costs.

Employee costs are eligible if they meet both the general eligibility conditions applicable to actual costs, as set out in Article 6.1(a) of the SMP Food MGAPDF, and the specific eligibility conditions applicable to employee costs under Article 6.2.A.1 of the SMP Food MGA.

These conditions are further explained in the AGA on pages 40–46 and 50–60, respectively.

Therefore, actual costs, including employee costs, must, among other eligibility requirements, comply with the conditions set out in Article 6.1(a)(i) and (ii). In particular, the costs must be actually incurred by the beneficiary during the duration of the action.

Article 6.2.A.1 of the SMP Food MGA statesPDF that the employee costs are calculated using the following method "daily rate for the person multiplied by number of day-equivalents worked on the action (rounded up or down to the nearest half-day)".

The same article provides also for the calculation methodology of the daily rate (annual personnel costs divided by 215) and sets that “the total number of day-equivalents declared in EU grants, for a person for a year, cannot be higher than 215”.

For further information and additional explanation, you are kindly requested to consult the relevant AGAPDF annotations and in particular pages 50-60.

Article 20 of the SMP Food MGAPDF sets out the requirements for keeping records relating to personnel costs as follows:

The AGAPDF , pages 205–212, provides further guidance and clarification on the record-keeping requirements for personnel costs, including the different options available for recording working time (e.g. paper-based or computer-base).

Among other things, the AGA annotations to Article 20 provide a templateWord for a paper-based time declaration as well as guidance on the conversion of hours into day-equivalents.

For further information please refer to the extract from the AGA below.

We also recommend consulting Article 20 of the SMP Food MGAPDF and the relevant AGA annotations (pages 205-212).

As stated in the Call Document (Section 10, subsection “Budget categories and cost‑eligibility rules”), equipment costs shall be declared as depreciation costs. Consequently, in the Grant Agreement (Article 6.2.C.2) the depreciation option will be selected, and only the depreciation component should be used.

The call SMP-FOOD-2026-FW-STAKEHOLDERS-PJ –PDF in section 10, provides that the funding rate is 50% .

With respect to the funding rate and its application the AGA, in pages 35-36, further clarifies the following:

“As such, the EU grants are normally subject to a single funding rate for the entire action — which is expressed as a fixed percentage and announced in the call conditions. Through the application of the funding rate (a percentage of the eligible cost), co-financing is ensured as the remaining no eligible cost will need to be covered from other sources. Normally the granting authority does not require any further information on the sources of co-financing, unless specifically requested for the action.”

The call document SMP-FOOD-2026-FW-STAKEHOLDERS-PJ – call-fiche_smp-food-2026-fw-stakeholders-pj_en.pdfPDF - provides information on this topic, especially in the “EU Grants AGA — Annotated Grant Agreement” - aga_en.pdfPDF

The general eligibility conditions of the costs are the following:

(i)they must be actually incurred by the beneficiary

(ii)they must be incurred in the project period

(iii)they must be declared under one of the budget categories, see below

(iv)they must be incurred in connection with the action as described in Annex 1 and necessary for its implementation

(v)they must be identifiable and verifiable, in particular recorded in the beneficiary’s accounts in accordance with the accounting standards applicable in the country where the beneficiary is established and with the beneficiary’s usual cost accounting practices

(vi)they must comply with the applicable national law on taxes, labour and social security and

(vii)they must be reasonable, justified and must comply with the principle of sound financial management, in particular regarding economy and efficiency.

Budget categories for this call are:

− A. Personnel costs

− A.1 Employees,

− A.2 Natural persons under direct contract,

− A.3 Seconded persons

− A.4 SME owners and natural person beneficiaries

− B. Subcontracting costs

− C. Purchase costs

− C.1 Travel and subsistence

− C.2 Equipment

− C.3 Other goods, works and services

− D. Other cost categories

− D.1 Financial support to third parties

− E. Indirect costs

To improve the readability, overall flow, and clarity of the proposal, you may remove the non-applicable instruction blocks as long as all mandatory sections, headings and the overall structure and formatting requirements of Part B are fully preserved.

Please ensure that the numbering and layout of the sections remain consistent with the official template

There is no mandatory template for the annual activity reports among the templates available for this call. Applicants should prepare the report on the activities of the last year in the format they prefer, preferably as a .doc or .pdf file, and upload it as an annex to their application.

According to the call document “proposals shorter than 30 pages (Part B) are welcome” but there is not any obligation about the length of the proposal.

This means that proposals longer than 30 pages will not be disregarded or disqualified.

An applicant can submit a proposal in any official EU language (project abstract/summary should however always be in English). For reasons of efficiency, it is strongly advised to use English for the entire application.

The call supports actions to process, reprocess and valorise side streams from food production or surpluses into new products (section 2). This is, however, a means to achieve the overarching objective of the call, which is to support the implementation of effective food waste prevention initiatives.

Section 2 of the call document states that:

"Actions to prevent food waste at source or redistribution for human consumption in line with the upper two levels of the food use and waste hierarchy will be prioritised. Actions transferring food no longer destined for human consumption to feed purposes are not covered by the scope of this call. Nor are actions promoting waste treatment, such as composting."

In line with this, proposals must apply the Target-Measure-Act approach: an initial food waste diagnosis, food waste reduction targets set against a specific baseline, actions tackling the identified hotspots, and a final evaluation. The expected impacts must be demonstrated through indicators, such as the amounts of food waste reduced.

A proposal must therefore demonstrate how the action prevents or reduces food waste within the applicant's operations or along the food supply chain, measurable against a baseline. Projects that mainly give a new use to a residue that arises regardless of the action, without reducing the amount of food waste generated, do not meet the objectives of the call. As example in case of coffe ground residues, the catering operation would generate the same quantity of coffee grounds before and after the project, so no reduction could be measured against a baseline.

Eligibility is assessed by the evaluation committee on the basis of the full proposal.

Letters of support are not among the documents required by the call and are not part of the award criteria.

They will therefore not be considered in the evaluation of the proposal and will not give any advantage to proposal.

Moreover, the award criteria (Relevance 40, Quality 40, Impact 20) have no element that rewards endorsements. The only related point is "collaboration with other actors in the food value chain" under Quality, which is assessed on the proposal content.

The applicant is free to include letters of support, but those will have no influence on the outcome of the evaluation of your proposal.

Renting a space against payment from another beneficiary or affiliated entity is considered a purchase between participants, which is not allowed, as purchase between participants is not eligible cost.

An annual activity report is a document, usually produced once a year, in which an organisation reports on what it did over the previous twelve months. It should describe the organisation’s activities in the last year, in enough detail to allow the Agency to check the organisation’s aims and activities and its operational and professional capacity.

The Section 7 of the call document states that, the “applicants must have the know-how, qualifications and resources to successfully implement the projects and contribute their share (including sufficient experience in projects of comparable size and nature)”.

It must be demonstrated by a combination of information described in:

− general profiles (qualifications and experiences) of the staff responsible for managing and implementing the project

− description of the consortium participants, where applicable

− applicants’ activity reports of last year

− list of previous projects (key projects for the last 4 years)

Moreover the call document states that: “This capacity will be assessed together with the ‘Quality’ award criterion, on the basis of the competence and experience of the applicants and their project teams, including operational resources (human, technical and other) or, exceptionally, the measures proposed to obtain it by the time the task implementation starts.”

Therefore, section 7 of the call document allows operational capacity to be shown "exceptionally" through the measures proposed to build capacity by implementation start, plus the other sources of information listed above — rather than relying solely on an activity report or a four-year project history. In your specific case, we recommend explaining in your project proposal what measures you plan to build capacity by the time implementation starts.

Ultimately, whether your specific circumstances are considered sufficient will be assessed by the evaluation committee as part of the Quality criterion, so we cannot pre-confirm the outcome.

According to the AGA Annotated Grant AgreementPDF, p.35 and p.36 clarify that the part of the action that is not co-financed by the EU-funding, is financed by other sources. These sources may be for example the beneficiaries’ own resources, the income generated by the action (e.g. by selling results), or financial contributions from third parties (e.g. grants from national or private funding programmes).

Regarding the information required on these sources, the AGA mentions that: “[…] Normally the granting authority does not require any further information on the sources of co-financing, unless specifically requested for the action.”

The consortium will have to declare the amount and the description of the financial contributions from third parties in the application, as required by the relevant template:

Part B: Detailed budget table, section project income

Part A: Budget table– financial contribution.

In addition to the above, financial contributions from third parties are not declared in the action as eligible costs.

Regarding the consortium agreement, it is described in the AGA, p.153. It should be emphasized that the consortium agreement is an internal arrangement between the consortium partners; HaDEA is not a party to this agreement and bears no responsibility for it.

Regarding the revenues, they are defined (in Art. 22.3.4 of the SMP Food Model Grant Agreement) as “all income generated by the action during its duration for beneficiaries that are profit legal entities”. More details on revenues are provided for p.238 of the AGA.

Regarding the declaration of personnel costs for SME owners and natural‑person beneficiaries, Article 6.2.A.4 of the SMP Food MGA states: “A.4 The work of SME owners for the action (i.e. owners of beneficiaries that are small and medium-sized enterprises not receiving a salary) or natural person beneficiaries (i.e. beneficiaries that are natural persons not receiving a salary) may be declared as personnel costs, if they fulfil the general eligibility conditions and are calculated as unit costs in accordance with the method set out in Annex 2a.”

The rest of the personnel costs shall be declared and calculated in accordance with the relevant SMP Food Model Grant Agreement Articles 6.2.A.1, 6.2.A.2 and 6.2.A.3.

According to the annotations to Article 5 of the Annotated Grant Agreement (AGA), pages 35–36:

“EU grants are normally subject to ‘co-financing’ or ‘co-funding’, meaning that the EU granting authority does only provide a part of the funding of the action and the remaining parts must be financed from the beneficiaries’ own resources, income generated by the action (e.g. by selling results), or financial or in-kind contributions from third parties (e.g. grants from national or private funding programmes).”

Under SMP-Food in kind contributions provided by third parties for free as well as volunteer costs are eligible and accordingly cannot be charged to the action.