Title: Municipal Programme on Food Waste and Loss Combat
Campaign on food waste combat in public supply equipment.
City: Sao Paulo
Country: Brazil
Population: 12 million
Date of start: 10/2017
SDGs: 2,8,12
Description
São Paulo, is a city with 12 million people, where food waste prevails and the number of people in food insecurity, according to a survey carried out in 2015 is about 16 thousand street dwellers. This number is increasing.
The Programme begins with the awareness of the traders who work in the public logistics of food supply. The donated food is destined to the Municipal Food Bank where the food goes through screening before being donated to the people who are in a situation of food insecurity (85% of saved food is donated).
The campaign allows, in an innovative way, to work the three problems at once:
It plays an extremely important role in promoting the distribution of healthy food suitable for human consumption to people in a condition of food insecurity. Through the 310 charitable institutions (charities) registered in the Municipal Food Bank, about 120 thousand people in situations of social vulnerability are impacted. From the beginning of the Programme (October 2017) until the end of May 2019, 170 tons of food were collected.
The Programme also promotes the training and reintegration into the employment market of unemployed people in situations of social and economic vulnerability. The beneficiaries, mostly homeless and immigrants, participate directly in activities related to the collection of food and integrated qualification courses on the good practices of food manipulation, permaculture, personal finance and socio-emotional capacities.
From an environmental point of view, the campaign aims to fight waste and contributes to the reduction of solid waste creation and, consequently, to the reduction of the costs generated in the disposal, fulfilling the National Policy of Solid Waste (Federal Law 12.305/10).
The action brings two major challenges: the logistics and work dynamics of traders. As for logistics, the challenge is not being able to cover all the municipal supply equipment, with the reduced number of trucks that the Municipal Food Bank Programme has. Therefore, the goal is to connect the entities directly at the point of the generation of waste (markets and street markets).
São Paulo has 880 street markets and 32 municipal markets. The pilot is being finalized phase that currently takes place in 7 public supply equipment. The goal is to expand the campaign to all 32 public markets and 150 street markets by the end of 2020.
For its commitment to reduce food waste through the donation of food to vulnerable groups and create municipal food banks that collected 170 tons of food.
Motivation of the MPA 2019 Evaluation Committee
Its initiative established a partnership among 310 charities and reached 120.00 persons in need.