Ecomondo opens new opportunities for Lowinfood, the anti-food waste project
Lowin’food project partners met last 8th and 9th November in Rimini at Ecomondo fairtrade, where they had been invited by the European Commission to present the ongoing project within its official pavillion. Ecomondo is the reference event in Europe for the new models of circular and regenerative economy and sustainability.
Besides a dedicated booth to share material about the project and meet visitors, Lowin’food took an active part in the European Commission schedule: the coordinator Clara Cicatiello from University of Tuscia presented some of the innovations for the reduction of food waste during a pitch session in front of companies and investors.
The meeting at Ecomondo was also an opportunity for Emilia-Romagna Region to show to Italian partners -University of Tuscia and University of Bologna, Department of Agricultural and Food sciences- how the S.I.R. (Sistema Informativo dei Ritiri) platform works, its evolution and perspectives. The work package 2 in fact is focused on testing in other European regions the Emilia-Romagna S.I.R. platform that allows the digital automation of all procedures related to market withdrawals of fruit and vegetables surplus and the distribution of products to charities.
The project partners group visited the headquarter of Caritas Rimini during the weekly delivery of fruit and vegetables surplus by POs - Producer organisations: Caritas stocks the total amount of fresh products, which are then parceled through S.I.R. platform according to the charities’ needs, and afterwards the authorized beneficiaries can pick up their part.
After the visit a meeting was hold where the head of Cal (Parma Agro-food Centre) showed a virtuous project of “sympathetic logistics”: using S.I.R platform, Car has made available for more than one year its facilities and expertise to manage the fruit and vegetables delivery provided by POs and the subsequent distribution to beneficiaries. Cal signed a partnership with the charities involved in the project, while Emilia-Romagna Region acts as a supervisor of the whole process.
The model works and can be replicated, since it has many advantages such as: complete dematerialization of all documents, more transparency during all the withdrawal steps (they can be followed in real time remotely);significant increase of the quantities handled; optimization of the loading/unloading steps; shortening of distancies; climate controlled storage of fruit and vegetable if the distribution is not immediate; savings on monitoring and control costs, since all the procedure steps are certified.
Next step is the replication of this experiment both at regional level, engaging other members of Emilia-Romagna Agro-food Centres network, such as Caar Rimini where the project is soon going to be implemented, both at European level. The ongoing work is focused on sharing and transferring the S.I.R. platform model to other public institutions outside Italy.
