Food products discounted by 50 per cent, no longer sellable in major chains, but still in good condition. That's the recipe against waste from Wefood.
There were queues outside the first supermarket selling products destined for the bin. Wefood was inaugurated in Copenhagen by Princess Mary herself and will be run by volunteers from the organisation Folkekirkens Nødhjælp.
A project designed to reduce food waste of goods that are still edible according to health standards, but which are often thrown away due to minor packaging defects, because they have just passed their expiry date or have gone unsold. The products are sold at discounts ranging from 30 to 50 per cent. "Wefood is certainly the first supermarket of this kind in Denmark, but we believe it is also the first in the world," the organisation explains. "Our initiative is not aimed solely at customers on the lowest incomes. On the contrary, it was created for those who are concerned about the amount of food waste produced in this country."
Every year, 1.3 billion tonnes of food are thrown away, against a backdrop of nearly 800 million people suffering from hunger. According to the Barilla center food and nutrition, in our country between 10 and 20 million tonnes of food products end up as waste every year, with a value of around 37 billion euros. A cost of 450 euros per family per year. Food that, according to estimates by Coldiretti, would be enough to feed around 44 million people.
An initiative that goes hand in hand with the French decision to fine supermarkets — with fines of up to 75,000 euros — that waste or throw away food still in good condition. In Italy, too, things are beginning to move, and many startups are emerging to reduce food waste. Such as Last Minute Sotto Casa, a free app that connects shopkeepers and consumers and allows them to sell fresh goods at reduced prices when they risk going unsold. "Just think of the convenience of having a digital megaphone with which to tell all the customers in the area 'Within 100 metres of you, there's fresh ricotta and sauce on offer'," explains Francesco Ardito, founder of the startup, to LifeGate. "Our tool helps the community, it helps them, and on top of that, once you're there, you always end up buying something else."