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Since 2011, we have been donating food production surpluses and non-marketable products from large retail stores, totaling over 9 million cans, equivalent to the daily protein requirements of almost 2.5 million people.
In 2019, amongst the most important initiatives, we joined the Food Poverty Lab, a multi-stakeholder project designed by the Lombardy Food Bank in conjunction with Altis-Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan.
The project was set up to meet a real need: managing food surpluses and giving them a new life. Its objective was to improve the management of food surplus recovery and distribution, in order to build pilot projects in the local area.
The project involved the recovery of vegetable surpluses from the manufacture of Rio Mare Salads at the Cermenate plant, to be donated to charity organisations in Como and the surrounding area.
In 2020, the crisis triggered by the pandemic meant that action was required on a huge scale to meet the population’s food needs. In response, we made more resources available.
During the crisis, Rio Mare donated over 860,000 tins of tuna to the Lombardy Food Bank, helping to support the day-to-day nutritional requirements of over 230,000 people experiencing hardship.
In September 2020, we launched the La bontà ripaga [Goodness pays off], an initiative that enabled us to donate meals to those most in need and allow consumers to save on their shopping costs, providing much-needed relief to families.
For every €10 of Rio Mare products purchased, we donated the equivalent of ten meals to Banco Alimentare while refunding the consumer 50% of the cost of their purchase. The initiative meant we were able to distribute 700,000 meals to people in difficulty.
