direct redistribution has also been occurring in all nordic countries for many years locally and regionally as this study has documented and it is currently a widespread activity in most countries the main reason behind redistribution has been social security where charity organisations have contributed to better life conditions for lowincome people through serving of meals and delivering food bags the new dimension of food redistribution in the last few years is that preventing food waste has been a positive sideeffect for the society it is not known to what extent the regions involved in the survey are representative for the situations in each of the nordic countries it can be expected to have a higher importance in larger cities and urban areas than in smaller cities and rural areas but this need to be more deeply studied in a followingup study some results are available from the networks of food banks as they have to register the amount of food being received from donators feba