Espigoladors Foundation: fighting for a world without food waste

Espigoladors Foundation

2021

PRIZE

  • Mission Zero Waste Prize
Contents

Video

Description

At Espigoladors, we fight for good usage of food, simultaneously empowering people at risk of social exclusion in a transformative, participative, inclusive, and sustainable manner. We are a non-profit organisation addressing three social challenges: reducing food losses and food waste; promoting the right to healthy nutrition; and creating employment opportunities for groups of people at risk of social exclusion.

We want to recover and dignify the gleaning activity, an ancient practice with ancestral roots which consists in the harvest and collection, through an agreement with the farmer, of fruits and vegetables which are discarded from the commercial market for surplus production, diminishing of sales or aesthetic questions.

Thus we contribute to reducing the food waste and losses while making the task of the primary sector visible, as well as raising awareness about the value of food.

We organize gleanings directly in the fields of food which cannot be sold and we distribute them to social entities in order to provide access to healthy, nutritious food to people in vulnerable situations.

Moreover, in 2018 we inaugurated the Central Kitchen of the es im-perfect® brand in the neighbourhood of Sant Cosme in El Prat de Llobregat. Thus, just a few kilometres from the Baix Llobregat Agricultural Park – known as the “pantry” of the metropolitan area of Barcelona, a space for socio-labor insertion and innovation in food use was born, consolidating the circular model of Espigoladors. es im-perfect® is a brand of plant-based preserves committed to environmental sustainability and social justice. In our Central Kitchen, we make plant-based pâtés, jams, and sauces using local fruits and vegetables rejected from the commercial circuit due to physical imperfections, price drops, or production surpluses. At es im-perfect®, we repurpose them and give them new value through a sustainable model based on the circular economy. Further, the es im-perfect® Central Kitchen is a socio-labor insertion space for people at risk of social exclusion.

Story

Espigoladors is a non-profit organisation born in 2014 in Catalonia, Spain. We fight for a better food usage while empowering people at risk of social exclusion from a transformative, participative, inclusive and sustainable way. We act upon three social challenges: developing a replicable and transferable model able to impact food waste reduction, enhancing access to an adequate diet and generating new opportunities for people at risk of social exclusion.

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Judge’s Comments

Richard Ekkebus

Culinary Director at The Landmark Mandarin Oriental, Hong Kong

Mission Zero Waste Prize

As a chef I have a clear understanding of the problems and the scale of food waste problem. Between 33-50% of all food produced globally is never eaten, and the value of this wasted food is worth over $1 trillion. Morally wrong. Meanwhile 800 million people go to bed hungry every night. That is 1 in 9 people on the planet who are starving or malnourished. Over the past decades consumers have been misled that perfection is better, that fruits and vegetables grow uniform. the truth is far from that. I am compelled by this project. I believe in circular food economies and the potential of digital food banks where 'lesser desired" products are sold, a way to reduce food waste and to generate revenue. Our planets usage of our resources is poor and through technology this could be improved. This initiative deals with unwanted fruits and vegetables and make perfect and delicious meals or components for meals. Making from ugly and imperfect fruits and vegetables delicious sauces, jam’s and soups. I can say a wonderful initiative and hope that there will be many more similar initiatives to come worldwide.

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