According to the organizers of the event, the German chapter of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and the German charity Welthungerhilfe (German hunger aid), around 2,500 people took part in the event held outside of Berlin's main train station on Saturday.

"Germany needs a national action plan to combat food wastage," said Andreas Hoppe, an actor who is well-known in the country due to his role in the popular Sunday evening murder mystery series "Tatort."

Speaking as he officially opened the event, Hoppe called for amount of food that is wasted annually in Germany to be halved in the next few years.

On Sunday, the WWF Deutschland, which along with Welthungerhilfe had used the Twitter hashtag #Essensretterbrunch (food savers' brunch) to publicize the event, followed it up by calling on its supporters to sign an online petition against wasting food.

According to the WWF Deutschland and Welthungerhilfe, all of the items served on Saturday were made of food that had been saved from the dumpster, as it had either passed its "best before" date or had been deemed unsalable by retailers due to flaws in its appearance or packaging.

Germans waste more than 18 tons of edible food annually, a joint statement released by the two organizations said.

pfd/ng (dpa, epd, AFP)