The RE-STORE Pantry, part of a win-win circular economy project for large-scale retailers and people with disabilities, debuts in Bergamo. With the four goals of food surplus recovery, solidarity food distribution, job placement of disabled and frail people.
The project is the brainchild of F.O.R.I.A(FIT for Organization Retail International Agency) S.r.l., which specializes in quality control and safety in food retail, under the leadership of Prof. Gianni Di Falco. With a view to generating a virtuous circle that creates shared economic and social value.
RE-STORE, enhancing the value of surpluses from large-scale retail trade.
The starting point of RE-STORE is surplus food at the fresh food counter in large-scale retail trade (GDO). Foods no longer marketable but still edible.
Donating these surpluses to charities generates a triple benefit:
– Offer food to people in poverty and social exclusion,
– measure and prevent food waste, and thus the fate to waste of edible foods,
– Realize a tax benefit for donors, as provided by the Gadda Law (116/2016). (1)
Work to people with disabilities and frailty
The job placement of people with disabilities and frailty-now at greater risk of poverty and social exclusion, in Italy as in the EU-closes the circle of the project conceived by Gianni Di Falco.
The RE-STORE training pathway enables large-scale retailers to fulfill their obligation to hire disabled workers, as per Law 68/99, through:
- Outsourcing of a work order to a type B social cooperative (ex art.14, Legislative Decree 276/03).
- Training of selected individuals to the specific jobs required by the client, through on-the-job training,
- possibility of hiring resources effectively prepared to perform the required tasks, within the 5-year period stipulated by law.
There are four useful areas of RE-STORE.
1 – RE-STORE Handout
Starting 7.11.22, at 6 Ercole Mozzi Street in Bergamo, Italy, every Monday and Thursday from 4:30 to 7:30 p.m., the RE-STORE pantry will offer free surplus food and oversized fruit. Clerks are disabled people engaged in training.
The workshop is located on the premises of FORIA and is run by the Namasté social cooperative. Which, through a similar initiative (Social Pantry), has recovered and redistributed 101 tons of food, mostly fresh and fruit and vegetables, in the past year.
To donate, call the coordinator, Raffaele Avagliano (329 7422075).
2 – Bottega Ciborobico
The Ciborobico store is run by the Why Not cooperative, which combines support for the sale of local and fair-trade products with an inclusive place of experiential education dedicated to people with frailty.
It is located at 13/15 Daste and Spalenga Street in Bergamo, and offers sustainable, km0 products from the Bergamo valleys, organic and fair trade.
3 – Training Center Re-store
The Re-store Training Center is a training place for people with disabilities.
Trainees learn useful back-office tasks for the food supply chain, such as administering market research questionnaires, data collection and data entry, scientific trial data entry, and tasks to support product quality and life analysis, making them competent and versatile resources.
4 – E-RESTORE
Thee-restore is a surplus food recovery e-shop with home delivery.
Next to RE-STORE parcels, gift parcels with third-party brands such as distributors are prepared for anniversaries.
Notes
(1) For goods supplied free of charge to associations with the sole purpose of assistance or charity, the donating enterprise does not have to charge tax on the outgoing goods, while it can deduct the input VAT paid for the purchase of the goods. In addition, solidarity transfers for the purpose of calculating business income are not considered income, so they are not subject to IRES or IRPEF taxation. Finally, for the purpose of garbage tax, when food goods are donated free of charge to the needy or for animal feed, the municipality may apply a rate reduction coefficient proportional to the quantity, duly certified, of the donated goods. V. https://www.gazzettaufficiale.it/eli/id/2016/08/30/16G00179/sg
Professional journalist since January 1995, he has worked for newspapers (Il Messaggero, Paese Sera, La Stampa) and periodicals (NumeroUno, Il Salvagente). She is the author of journalistic surveys on food, she has published the book "Reading labels to know what we eat".
