Against food waste, Coop Italy relaunches. With only a few weeks to go before the new anti-waste law comes into effect, Italy’s leading supermarket retailer takes stock of the recovery of food surpluses, to which it has been dedicated for more than 20 years, and relaunches with new initiatives, expanding the type of products donated and the audience of recipients.
Since 2003 (the year the Good Samaritan Law 155/03 was passed) Coop has been reorganizing warehouses and establishing a network of cooperation with 800 associations involved in volunteerism. The result is the national “Good Endeavor” project, from which derives a reuse of resources for the benefit of people in need, which in 2015 resulted in about 6 million meals to the needy, the result of more than 5 thousand tons of donated food, worth about 24 million euros.
Donated foods include fresh produce (fruits, vegetables, dairy products, meat) left unsold at the end of the day, packaged foods such as pasta, cookies, canned foods, baby food close to expiration, and foods with damaged secondary packaging. Valuable “scraps” that become a meal to be served in solidarity soup kitchens or food parcels to be distributed to families in need.
