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Photo credit: kierfchen.lu

A free online platform is helping Luxembourg residents rescue traditional orchard fruit from going to waste while building community connections.

What is Kierfchen And Why it Matters

Until the middle of the 20th century, meadow orchards were the main source of fruit throughout Luxembourg. Today, most of this locally grown, unsprayed fruit goes unharvested and unused. In response to this challenge, the online platform ‘Kierfchen’ was developed by Natur & Geopark Mëllerdall. The project is financed by the Ministry of the Environment, Climate and Biodiversity, with the goal of encouraging the use of this fruit and actively counteracting food waste at the local level. It is an interactive platform aiming to make it easy for anyone to share, find, or use orchard resources so that valuable fruit is consumed by our local communities.

How It Works

The main goal of kierfchen.lu is to bring together everyone involved with orchard meadows and related local food networks. It uses a free, interactive map to connect people across the country. Since Spring 2025, the map covers the entire country. Now, residents anywhere in Luxembourg can post listings or browse offers. Whether you have a single apple tree in your garden or manage a community orchard, you can participate. The platform connects people who have surplus fruit with those searching for local produce, creating a direct link between supply and demand.

Who Can Join

Anyone can use kierfchen.lu. No special qualifications are required. Smallholders, orchard owners, community groups, home gardeners, restaurants, and residents are all welcome! If you are looking to harvest, share, buy, swap, or collaborate around orchard fruit and related resources, this platform is for you. Even individuals with just one tree are encouraged to get involved and help reduce waste while strengthening local food networks.

What You Will Find on the Map

The platform hosts a wide variety of listings beyond just fruit. You will discover fruits and nuts available for harvest or purchase, regional producers, restaurants sourcing local ingredients, beekeepers, livestock keepers, harvesting equipment for loan or rent, conservation advice centers, and upcoming events. Kierfchen.lu also promotes the ‘Gielt Band’ campaign from the Ministry of Agriculture, where trees marked with a yellow ribbon signal that the fruit may be harvested by anyone. It is a one-stop resource for everything related to Luxembourg’s orchard landscape.

Currently, the platform is available in German, with translations into other languages in progress.

How to Get Involved 

Ready to make a difference? Here’s how you can start:

Post your tree or harvest offer: Have surplus fruit? Let others know by adding a free listing to the map.

Search the map for nearby listings: Whether you are looking for apples, plums, or beekeeping space, explore what is available across Luxembourg.

Share the platform with your network: Help neighbours and friends discover kierfchen.lu through social media and word of mouth.

This article is based on a conversation between Shashi Bhushan (Web Editor for Foodsharing Luxembourg asbl) and Julie Plumer (Chargée du projet, Natura 2000 verbindet, Natur & Geopark Mëllerdall).

🌱 On June 30, 2025, the Meng Landwirtschaft platform and its 19 member organisations, including Foodsharing Luxembourg, presented the 4th, fully revised edition of their plea for a thorough overhaul of agricultural policy, near the 2,000 m² field at the Maison vun der Natur.

🎯 Objective: To stimulate public debate on the future of agriculture in Luxembourg and actively contribute to it. Meng Landwirtschaft calls on Luxembourg’s political leaders—at both the national and European levels—to build a sustainable framework for agriculture that is no longer solely subject to competition law, but recognised as a social, ecological, and public-interest pillar.

📢 Another agriculture is possible: fairer, more resilient, and inclusive!

👉 Learn more: Advocacy for a fair and resilient agricultural policy

Foodsharing Luxembourg contributed to the July edition of the CIRCLE OF LIFE series organised by microtarians SIS on Sunday the 6th of July in the frame of LUGA. Due to the bad weather, this edition was relocated from the urban farm Kuerbebierg to the Quartier Stuff Grünewald.

Besides providing rescued foods and giving a hand, we contributed with a participative discussion round with the title “What if all food were consumed and no food were wasted?”.

Let’s imagine we are in the year 2030. Food loss and waste are issues of the past. How did we manage to do so? How does every sector look like now?

After an imagination exercise and a collective topic identification, we had a fishbowl conversation, which most participants used to actively join the discussion, giving everyone in the room a chance to contribute. The invitees Hannah Proffitt-Perchard, Pauline Seeburger and Stefania Filice got the discussion started. The whole session was facilitated by Daniel Waxweiler.

The collective topic identification resulted in a wall of post-its with topics, which were clustered according to categories that emerged naturally. Improvements along the whole production chain were collected, and the role of regulations was highlighted. Raising awareness with young people was another bigger cluster.

In the following discussion round, we started by talking about how accessible an organic or local diet is and how gardens could be made more accessible for everyone by communes. Then, we wondered why many people don’t prioritise conserving food. Is food too cheap? Or was the knowledge lost? This lead us to talk about how children get in touch in some places already more with how their food grows and how it can be transformed. We also shifted our attention to how to help people to waste less. Could rewards work even better than punishments at the individual level? Too what degree could technological solutions help? We closed this round by reminding us that creating communities is essential for solving the issue from the bottom-up.

After that, we collectively enjoyed the food based on rescued vegetables and fruits and on fermented surprises by microtarians.

And how do you image the future?

Feedback EU published a statement today calling the EU for setting its targets for manufacturing and processing food waste reduction to at least 20%. We fully support this demand.

A new Foodsharing Point was opened today at the “Musée du Déchet”, 54 rue J.-F.-Kennedy
, Differdange. It is accessible every day from 8:00 to 21:00. More details can be found on our Foodsharing Points page.

External links

• News on the website of the commune of Differdange
• Article by infogreen.lu

Although we didn’t win this year, we are incredibly grateful to participate in the ING Solidarity Awards 2024 ceremony!

Our team members, Martin Lecoutère and Hannah Proffitt-Perchard, had the opportunity to attend the event, discover and connect with many inspiring ASBLs (non-profit organisations) across Luxembourg. It was truly motivating to see the incredible work being done by other organisations committed to making a difference. 💚

Congratulations to all the winners and a special mention to Fondation Lëtzbuerger Kannerduerf who this year won the Environmental Protection category. 🌱

A special shout-out to on.perfekt and Kass-Haff, who last year won in the Environmental Protection category. Their initiatives continue to inspire us, and we’re excited to see how all of us can contribute to a more ecological and more sustainable Luxembourg.

A big thank you to ING Luxembourg for bringing us all together in the spirit of collaboration and solidarity. It’s events like these that help strengthen the network of organisations working for social and environmental good in Luxembourg, and we’re proud to be part of that movement.

Let’s continue to learn from each other, share ideas, and work together towards a more sustainable and environmentally conscious future!

SOS Faim is organising the first edition of the film festival AlimenTERRE from the 6th November to the 6th December. Five documentaries about crucial issues around food and agriculture will be shown. More details can be found on the official website and in the Facebook event.

Foodsharing Luxembourg is supporting this festival as communication partner.

The interview with Daniel realised in 2023 for the exhibition All You Can Eat, which took place from the 6th October 2023 until the 14th July 2024 in the Lëtzebuerg City Museum is now available on YouTube.

Foodsharing Luxembourg had a disco soup with Casa Lallange, CCC Zero Waste and CIGL on the Festival des Citoyen.ne.s en Transition on the 29th June 2024. Some photos can be found in the latest newsletter of Transition Minett.

Due to continuous vandalism we were forced to close the Foodsharing Point in Bonnevoie on the 5th August 2024.

A big thanks to all the volunteers for having checked and cleaned it regularly and to Chambre des Salariés for having offered us this place!

You can use our other Foodsharing Points.