Prague's first food bank opened March 30, and already local charities and humanitarian organizations are lining up to use it in their fight against hunger and food wastage.

"The idea of a food bank is quite provocative to consumers," said Ilja Hradecky, president of the Czech Federation of Food Banks (ČFPB).

"Distribution of food from people who can give it to those who need it is an important issue."

The Prague facility, located in an empty warehouse in Hostivař, will be the largest food bank in the country; there are two smaller banks, one in Plzeň, west Bohemia, and another in Litomyšl, east Bohemia.

The ČFPB purchased the warehouse for a symbolic 1 Kč (4 U.S. cents) from the water company Veolia Voda. It has 230 square meters (2,475 square feet) of capacity, enough space to store up to 800 metric tons (880 short tons) of food each year.

Bank volunteers plan to drive to the city's hypermarkets, food producers and farmers for donations of fruit, bread and nonperishable food items that otherwise would be thrown away.

The products will then be distributed from the bank to local charities and humanitarian organizations. The bank will not distribute frozen food or meat.

The Salvation Army, Naděje — a central homeless shelter in Prague's Nové Město district — and the Association of Reception Centers are among those looking to get involved in the food bank. While churches are not formally involved, the bank's official opening was attended by a few religious leaders.

"I'm here to check out how our church can help; maybe by organizing food collections," said Laurie Barnes, deacon of the International Church of Prague.

Charity workers say the bank has the potential to help thousands of individuals and families locally who do not get enough to eat.

The problem of food waste

ČFPB was founded in Prague in 1994 with the aim of helping the homeless, local shelters for battered women and children and drug rehabilitation centers.

This past winter alone there were as many as 15,000 people in Prague who went hungry, according to Fabrice Martin-Plichta, 41, ČFPB's director and a Prague-based correspondent for French daily newspaper Le Monde.

Martin-Plichta said that in the Czech Republic, tens of thousands of metric tons of food are wasted every year, "But many companies still lack the will to help this way. It's easier for them to throw out their food products."

"We are at the very beginning," added Sophie Dugué, a ČFPB volunteer from France who lives in Prague. "It will take a lot of fundraising until all the space of the warehouse will be filled."

ČFPB received a 855,935 Kč grant from food giant Kraft this year, which promises to help it add resources. Right now ČFPB consists of just five volunteers, a storage keeper and a driver.

Help from France

Though food banks first popped up in the United States, the French are largely regarded as responsible for bringing the concept to Europe, where they have been successful since 1986. The European Food Bank Federation (FEBA) is based in France.

FEBA has registered 180 food banks in 14 countries. Poland, for example, has 19 operating banks. Germany has Deutsche Tafel, a federal association of 580 independent food banks that alone distributed 100,000 metric tons of food last year.

In 2005, FEBA distributed 177,000 metric tons of food worth 407 million euros ($488.4 million/11.7 billion Kč) to nearly 3 million people in need.

"I'm glad food banks have found support in the Czech Republic. This warehouse is an excellent result of great engagement and good cooperation," FEBA President Bernard Dandrel said at the Prague food bank's opening.

ČFPB is a member of FEBA, and the hope is that the relationship will help ČFPB establish another food bank in Moravia, preferably in Ostrava, by the end of this year.

The bank's team will approach new partners and try for new links and cooperation.