Combating waste, as well as issues related to sustainability, are no longer just a matter of personal sensitivities. Today we are witnessing a real cultural and economic shift: combating waste and sustainability have become a priority for the creation of new business opportunities.

Talking about Food Waste now becomes more strategic than ever to build that indispensable network of collaboration between business and public administration around the increasingly active role of the Third Sector.

The Food Sustainability Observatory itself, a promoter of best practices in innovation for sustainability, emphasizes the growing interest of companies in surplus prevention, measurement and systematization activities. The priority is the recovery and redistribution of surplus food to the neediest people.

This model of Sharing for Charity finds full realization through technological platforms such as REGUSTO, the first sustainability portal at the European level that transforms waste into a useful resource, while contributing to the development and consolidation of the social responsibility of donor companies.

Technology is increasingly serving more sustainable food systems, as also highlighted by the BCFN Foundation – Barilla Center for Food & Nutrition which, on the occasion of National Waste Prevention Day, cited REGUSTO as an innovative platform that manages food surpluses through blockchain technology.

Combating waste is a priority of global concern, also highlighted by the goals of the2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which calls for “halving global per capita food waste at the retail and consumer level and reducing food losses during production and supply chains, including post-harvest losses” (goal 12.3).

WHAT DO WE REFER TO WHEN WE TALK ABOUT FOOD WASTE?

The Barilla Center for Food & Nutrition (BCFN Foundation) proposes a distinction between Food losses, the losses that occur upstream in the food supply chain., and Food waste, the waste that occurs during industrial processing, distribution and final consumption.

The agribusiness chain, unfortunately, can contribute to increased waste on 4 levels:

• Production: due to special events or wrong assessment of demand, sometimes, overproduction occurs, which is bound to become waste;
• Transportation: often the supply chain is not efficient and smooth and can generate deterioration of goods, which again becomes waste;
• Distribution: “Data from the new Food Waste Index Report 2021 by the United Nations Environment Program (Unep) and the Wrap organization speak volumes. Throwing out food for the most part are households that discard 11 percent of food, while services and retail outlets waste 5 percent and 2 percent, respectively”(source Ansa2030).

From the perspective of this last aspect, which is the one that most involves public opinion, it becomes essential to promote that cultural awareness towards consumers to make them more aware of the importance of combating waste.

USEFUL TOOLS AGAINST FOOD WASTE. THE CASE HISTORY OF REGUSTO BAGS

In addition to information and outreach, some tools that, in their simplicity and practicality, can provide an innovative push with the right appeal to engage consumers and those in the restaurant industry can be useful.

In 2018, REGUSTO developed an anti-waste tool that is considered to be among the first innovative tools developed and deployed by REGUSTO to prevent and reduce food waste in the HoReCa sector, as part of a technology project of a mobile application that connects the restaurant industry with customers to prevent potential waste.(Source Republic)

REGUSTO BAGs have attracted interest from both consumers (who to date are still the main culprits of food waste, with an impact rate of more than 50 percent of waste along the entire supply chain) and insiders in the restaurant industry, thanks in part to an eye-catching graphic design by Grafiche Paciotti.

The REGUSTO BAG s thus introduced an innovative concept of environmentally sustainable foodie bags that convey a message of all-round sustainability made even more tangible and concrete by also calculating the_CO2 saved per bag.

The bags were chosen as innovative tools related to sustainability and awareness raising in the prevention of food waste at the end-consumer level, as part of two European projects in the field of “food waste”: the LIFE “i-REXFO” and the Horizon project “LOWINFOOD.“

This is one of the main reasons why two of Umbria’s most important cultural events, Spoleto’s Festival dei Due Mondi and Umbria Jazz, have decided to incisively espouse the cause of raising awareness of sustainability and combating waste.

With a synergistic project promoted by Recuperiamo, the REGUSTO brand company, in collaboration with Federalberghi, Confcommercio and Fipe, 40,000 REGUSTO Bags were distributed during the two events, potentially helping to save about 18,000 kg of wasted food and about 10,200 kg of_CO2.

An initiative of great ethical and social value that contributed to making the two prestigious events of international caliber, an important moment to draw public opinion to issues of extreme importance. REGUSTO was also among the speakers at the Conference promoted by the Festival dei Due Mondi in collaboration with the Istituto Superiore per la Ricerca e la Protezione Ambientale(ISPRA) on the issues of sustainability and the fight against waste.

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