RESTAURANT CAMPAIGN “RECOOPEREM”: Finish your meal at home

http://www.cresidusvoc.cat/recooperem/

Videos in English

KNOW HOW

This campaign fights against the waste of food in the restoration sector. It pursues reducing the amount of food that every day is thrown into the trash in restaurants, and raise awareness of that issue among the users of the restoration services, by facilitating a container to take away the leftovers to home. It is a sustainable practice, which tries to reduce the amount of food that is thrown in good conditions.

DESCRIPTION

Every day in Catalonia 719 tons of food in good condition is thrown away. More than a half comes from households, but also from supermarkets and restaurants. Therefore habits shall be changed at home and when eating out. The objective is achieving an environmental, economic and social change. Thus the campaign “RECOOPEREM” was launched.

The bodies involved are the Consorci de Residus del Vallès Occidental, Diputació de Barcelona; Consorci de Turisme del Vallès Occidental; Gremi Empresarial d’Hostaleria de Terrassa i Comarca; Gremi Comarcal d’Hostaleria i Turisme de Sabadell; and Cuina Vallès.

This practice consists in restaurants offering a container to take away the food that is not going to be eaten at the restaurant instead of throwing it away. The campaign includes also the publishing of culinary recipes on its web site, a MasterClass about how to recycle food that is left over, and a competition between 6 renowned cooks distributed in three teams just to see which team is the best by cooking recycled food.

BENEFITS

  • Both restaurateurs and customers, consider that the campaign was very positive.
  • 14,000 containers had been distributed for taking leftover food to home.
  • It has been prevented that about 2,000 kg of food had finished as waste.
  • A total amount of 120 participating establishments.
  • Despite the campaign has finished, there are some establishments that have declared that they will continue applying that system on their own.
  • It has been proved that food products are a resource, not a waste