Six years after Save Food was launched, the initiative has grown into a broad-based alliance of over 850 international members from industry, associations, NGOs and research institutes. One of the milestones of the Initiative is the Save Food Congress at interpack; its third edition was highly praised by delegates for its broad thematic coverage.

The congress pursued a multi-dimensional approach in order to address the issue of food losses and waste comprehensively. Participants included high-ranking political representatives as speakers such as Vytenis Andriukaitis, EU Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, and Gargi Kaul, Joint Secretary & Financial Adviser at the Indian Ministry for Food Processing Industries, as well as committed NGOs activists and representatives from business.

Over the course of the Congress, the perspective changed, focusing either on global views or national details and conditions – with India as a focal theme this time. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) presented results of a study in India funded by the Initiative; it had been carried out with the aim of identifying the mechanisms involved in losses of important base foodstuffs and of finding approaches for solutions. As part of the congress, the Save Food partners Messe Düsseldorf and FAO also signed a memorandum of understanding in order to fix the cooperation for the coming four years.

Innovationparc, the special show organized as part of interpack 2017, also addressed the theme of Save Food and presented very practical solutions for minimising food losses and waste. These also included the finalists and winners of the WorldStar Awards of the World Packaging Organisation (WPO). Awards went, for instance, to plastic bags for fruit that can enormously prolong shelf life thanks to built-in ripening-gas absorbers.