At a Glance
Location: Poland
Impact Areas: Employment Generation, Placement, Food Aid, Reducing Food Waste
People Supported:
NEETs, Long-term Unemployed, Refugees, Women, Individuals at risk of Social Exclusion, Individuals in need of Food Assistance, Children, LGBTQIA+
NESsT Programs: CEE Accelerator & Violet Fund
Joined NESsT Portfolio:
2023
Overview
Globally, almost 1.3 billion tons of food – one-third of the total food produced – goes to waste each year. In Poland, approximately 5 million tons of food is wasted annually, with consumers accounting for nearly 60% of the waste.
Founded in 2000, the Bank Żywności w Olsztynie (Olsztyn Food Bank – OFB in English) is a non-profit entity based in Poland with a mission to save food from waste. After acquiring food from excess reserves, OFB donates it to social organizations that provide basic needs support to excluded communities.
In parallel to its food aid services, OFB promotes innovative and inclusive food solutions in the community through educational workshops on zero-waste cooking, good shopping habits, conscious eating, and healthy nutrition. It also runs training and workforce activation programmes for youth and individuals facing long-term unemployment, and since 2025 has expanded this work through its Social Integration Center (CIS), which supports people facing severe social exclusion, including people facing homelessness, mental health challenges, and women affected by violence, to build skills and re-enter the labour market. Through tailored reintegration pathways, at year end the center had already supported 40 individuals to build confidence, gain skills, and move closer to the labour market.
After the war broke out in Ukraine, OFB extended its support to refugees—particularly women—through food and catering training, childcare during classes, psychological support, language courses, and help with CV creation and job matching. Today this work forms part of the organisation’s broader social and professional activation efforts, which now support a range of groups facing barriers to work, including people experiencing long-term unemployment and participants in the Social Integration Center (CIS).
OFB operates a fully accessible hostel, a modern coworking and event space, and a restaurant and catering service under one roof. This vibrant, multi-purpose space known as ‘Social Forge’ is a hub for promoting attitudes around healthy nutrition and sustainable food solutions, while generating income to supports the organization’s financial sustainability and creating employment and training opportunities for people from excluded communities – who currently make up 70% of its workforce.
Results & Impact
122,024
people impacted in 2025 through the OFB’s programs and initiatives
+2,600
tons of food saved from waste in 2025
40
people received employment support with the Social Integration Center (CIS) in 2025
“We specialize in acquiring and distributing food to those in need in the Warmia and Mazury region. We rescue food from being wasted, educate people about proper nutrition and food waste prevention, and promote social and vocational activation. Each year, we help around 80,000 individuals, delivering 2,500 tons of food with a value of over 4 million euros.”
NESsT Investment
Since joining NESsT’s Acceleration portfolio in 2023, OFB has strengthened its governance, management capacity, and operational systems with support from NESsT portfolio managers and IKEA co-workers, while continuing to receive comprehensive support to strengthen its long-term sustainability and impact. Building on this foundation, the Violet Fund’s investment provides capital to co-finance key infrastructure projects and scale the organisation’s social impact.
The investment will help fund the organisation’s contribution to three projects already underway: the expansion of the Social Integration Center (CIS) to include new workshop spaces for tailoring, carpentry ceramics, and other vocational pathways. Additionally, it will go toward improving the energy efficiency of its Wadąg warehouse, and launching an Ecological and Nutritional Education Center in Dłużec.
Together, these projects will allow OFB to reach more job seekers facing social exclusion, strengthen its work in sourcing and redistributing surplus food, and deepen its community education around nutrition, sustainability, and responsible consumption.
Alongside this investment, OFB will implement a co-designed three-year diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) plan aligned with the Violet Fund’s inclusive lens. This includes strengthening internal communication and staff engagement, introducing formal anti-discrimination and anti-mobbing policies, and delivering DEI training for leadership and staff. The organization also plans to deepen partnerships with local LGBTQIA+ groups, including co-designed internal programmes and activities around Pride Month.
Together, NESsT’s acceleration support and the Violet Fund investment will help OFB grow in a way that is more financially resilient, operationally stronger, and more inclusive.
