Participants of the project founded by the Electrolux Food Foundation in Curitiba, Brazil.
Globally one-third of the food produced ends up in the bin, while millions of people are undernourished. In 2017, we explored ways to be a force for good and make a positive impact.
A couple of years ago, Electrolux launched its food-centered community support approach. This includes the Electrolux Food Foundation, which is helping employees take action on food-related challenges in their communities by providing co-funding. The global Feed the Planet partnership with Worldchefs and AIESEC also supports these projects.
2017 was a year of exploring ways of making a positive impact, and the result was over 10,000 people engaged in events or through volunteering, 50,000 food bundles/meals donated, and over nine million people reached through social and traditional media. All the projects aim to build awareness on sustainable food consumption, and some provide culinary training for employment. In 2018, the focus will be to replicate and scale up the projects.
Jonas Samuelson, Electrolux CEO, says, "Feeding the world's growing population sustainably is one of the greatest challenges of our time. We believe Electrolux, as a world leader in kitchen appliances, has a responsibility and opportunity to contribute on issues related to cooking and food consumption."
Last year, we helped produce a mini-documentary called Ten Stories About Food Waste to inspire sustainable food consumption and cooking habits among consumers and professionals. Watch it here!
Stockholm City Mission, a local non-profit, opened a social restaurant with kitchen equipment donated by Electrolux. The restaurant serves affordable meals prepared using surplus food from Stockholm City Mission's food bank. On-the-job training for newly arrived immigrants started at the restaurant. During 2017, five people enrolled in the labor integration program. Moreover, two Zero Waste lunches for Electrolux employees and a Zero Waste market event during an international sustainability festival were held in 2017. Some 20 recipes using surplus food were developed, and AIESEC volunteers in Stockholm created a documentary about food waste.
This project provides training for underprivileged people in Curitiba to help them get a job in a professional kitchen. The training takes place in a specifically designed educational kitchen in an Electrolux facility. The curriculum was developed by Worldchefs, voluntarily delivered by different chefs and coordinated by Electrolux. In November 2017, 18 participants graduated from the pilot project, and by January 2018, four of them were employed. A partnership was established with the Sodexo Stop Hunger initiative to supply food for the training.
This campaign encourages people to post a photo of an expired (or soon to be expired) food or leftover item in their home, and share on social media (using the hashtags #SeasonYourEx and #HappyPlateSG) what they can do with it. For every five hashtags and/or social media shares, Electrolux funded the costs of running the Food Bank Singapore's van for a day. SGD 20,000 were donated to the Singapore Food Bank. Chef Eric Low created 10 recipes using some of the most common leftovers. Take a look at the recipes and read about smarter food habits on www.happyplate.sg.
Malaysia's #myhappyplate is raising awareness among a younger generation of consumers about using leftovers. Project activities include consumer engagement by collecting pledges from the public and converting them to food bundle donations for underprivileged families. Some 1,100 bundles were donated. A digital cookbook #CookForABetterFuture is to be released in 2018.
By establishing a three-year partnership with OzHarvest, Electrolux in Australia targets food that would otherwise be wasted to help feed people in need across the country. The 2017 campaign focused on raising awareness about food waste among Electrolux employees. Also, 1,500 meals, 200 kilograms of food and AUD 300,000 were donated. Four "Cooking for a cause" events and a Food Truck community event were organized.
Together with Worldchefs and a local food-sharing NGO, Electrolux in Poland is raising awareness about the problem of food waste through different events reaching 1,500 participants in 2017. The team also set up a food-sharing point for 700 employees at the Electrolux office in Kraków. A mobile app for food-sharing has been developed and was downloaded 780 times in the last two months of 2017.
Throughout one week in September, 8,400 Electrolux employees volunteered in soup kitchens, donating 35,000 meals to individuals and families in need. Some 11,000 non-perishable food items were collected and donated too. All the activities focused on giving back to the communities.
In 2017, Peru was devastated by heavy rains and flooding. Many people lost their lives, and thousands were forced to evacuate their homes. The floods destroyed homes, schools, hospitals and restaurants. Two towns hit hard were Huarmey and Paita. To support the victims of the flooding, the Peruvian Association of Chefs, Cooks and Allies, World Chefs Without Borders and Electrolux employees got together to provide them with food. Some 1,000 meals were served in Huarmey and 1,000 in Paita.
Large amounts of food and energy are wasted through traditional culinary practices - both inside the kitchen and in all the preceding steps in the food supply chain. The Sustainability Curriculum was created by Worldchefs to educate students and professionals on how to make sound and sustainable food decisions and to empower them to lead change across the globe. In 2017, 225 students took part in this training in culinary schools in Costa Rica, Canada and South Africa.
Planning for a high-capacity mobile kitchen equipped with professional kitchen appliances, for use in emergency situations such as natural disasters and refugee crises.
Source: http://www.fao.org/state-of-food-security-nutrition/en/