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INTERVIEW WITH TGTG

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• For how long has TGTG existed in Bilbao and the Basque Country? 

We launched Too Good To Go in Spain in September 2018 in Madrid and Barcelona, and in December of the same year we landed in Bilbao. This was the third city where we started fighting food waste in the Basque Country and a couple of months later we landed in Vitoria and San Sebastian as well. Right now in the city of Bilbao we are already collaborating with more than 80 food business (restaurants, supermarkets, fruit shops...) and we have already saved more than 38,000 meals. In the whole Basque Country we are already collaborating with more than 250 stores and we have already saved more than 88,000 meals. Globally, we are in 15 countries (14 european countries and recently we also launched in USA) where we have a community of 28 million users and more than 60,000 food businesses where we have saved more than 50 million meals.

 

• How big is TGTG now compared to the beginning? 

The growth of Too Good To Go in these two years has been incredible. Right now in Spain we have a community of 2 million users and we are already helping more than 5000 businesses in their fight against food waste where we have managed to avoid the waste of more than 1.7 million meals. The evolution and the welcome from users and shops are being so positive. In July of this year, we celebrated that we reached the first million meals saved after almost two years, and only 5 months later of this great milestone we have already saved 700,000 more meals. We hope to end 2020 having saved more than 2 million meals.

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• What is your mission within Bilbao and the Basque Country?

Our mission in the Basque country is the same as the one we have for the rest of Spain and all the countries where we are operating: fight food waste and inspire and empower everyone in this mission. Our aim is to add more food businesses to our movement, continue launching campaigns to raise awareness in society, and work with the different local governments to help stop food waste.

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• In which way has the Covid-19 situation affected your work?

The pandemic forced many businesses to close. So the supply of food to save in the app was reduced, but we continued to work with those businesses that were still open to help them avoid wasting food. With the new normality and the opening of the stores, we went back to help all those stores. During the lockdown, We also launched our non-profit project called WeCare for businesses that were still open giving them the opportunity to sell boxes with basic food for 7 days through the app, giving them the chance to reach more people and earn more income during that special moment.

Now, with the new normality, we know that it is a time of great uncertainty. Every day is different and many businesses cannot calculate their surpluses properly. We are helping these businesses through our app, finding a solution to avoid food waste, and reduce the economic impact.

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• Where do you see TGTG in 5 years from now?

It is difficult to know where we will be in the next 5 years, and therefore we prefer to think in the short term and how to impact here and now. Our most immediate goal in Spain is to reach 2 million meals saved before the end of the year and to create strong alliances with the major food brands. Obviously, in the long term we dream of a planet without food waste, and to achieve this we will continue to work hard to ensure that no food is wasted.

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• What’s the latest specific initiatives/collaboration agreement you have made? 

We are always working on initiatives and building alliances with the industry's top players to fight food waste. For example, in Spain we have recently made a partnership with Carrefour and Alcampo, the two big supermarket chains, and it is possible to save meals in almost all the supermarkets of these two brands in Spain. We have also launched an initiative called Marcas Waste Warrior, a community where we bring together big brands in the sector such as Unilever, Carrefour, Alcampo, Accor, Danone, among other, who through a declaration of intentions, commit themselves to work with us to take action against food waste.

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INTERVIEW WITH BCC 

 

I will try answering some of your questions below. Hope you find the text useful.

 

BCC ROLE

 

Basque Culinary Center is a pioneering academic institution worldwide, created by eight of the top Basque chefs along with Mondragon University, and with the involvement of eleven of the most influential chefs in the world.

At the Basque Culinary Center our main aim is higher education, research, innovation and promotion of gastronomy and nutrition.

Since its creation, in September 2011, we have worked to become the international benchmark in this field and also to promote gastronomy as a lever of social-economic development through the Faculty of Gastronomic Sciences and the Centre for Research and Innovation. We also develop many different promotional activities.

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SUSTAINABLE GASTRONOMY SPHERE

 

The meeting of the Basque Culinary Center Board of Trustees, the institution’s governing body, took place on Wednesday 11 December 2019. Outstanding among the topics presented at this second meeting of the year was the presentation of the Strategic Plan for Sustainable Development 20-24, which defines the challenges and the framework for the Basque Culinary Center. The proposals for this plan are based on the 2030 Agenda and the guidelines of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The seventeen SDGs proposed by the United Nations form an ambitious action plan to promote the well-being of people and the planet and prosperity within the 2030 Agenda framework. They represent a worldwide instrument to eradicate poverty and reduce inequalities and vulnerability, under the paradigm of sustainable human development.

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As Joxe Mari Aizega, Director General of the Basque Culinary Center points out, “We must rethink gastronomy in a sustainable way, and use it as another tool to combat climate change, improve people’s health and social awareness, and transform gastronomy processes and practices to reduce their environmental impact. As far as the Basque Culinary Center is concerned, it is essential to promote sustainable eating habits that affect the entire current value chain, which is why we believe it is necessary to strengthen and redefine our action plan. We understand sustainable development as an opportunity for creativity and innovation”.

The new Basque Culinary Center Strategic Plan for Sustainable Development 20-24 consists of a total of 82 actions and measures that will be implemented over the next four years and impacts particularly on nine of the seventeen SDGs. Most of the actions are directly connected with goal 4: quality education; goal 7: affordable and clean energy; goal 12: responsible consumption and production; and goal 17: the creation of partnerships to achieve the established goals. In relation to this last goal, we are exploring the possibility of reaching agreements with relevant actors at national and international level that will allow the focus of action and the impact of the other goals to be broadened.

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Similarly, the Plan indirectly affects these goals of the SDGs; goal 1: no poverty; goal 2: zero hunger; goal 3: guarantee a healthy life and promote well-being; goal 5: achieve gender equality; goal 11: sustainable cities and communities; goal 9: industry, innovation and infrastructure; and goal 13: climate action, which will also be part of the challenges and short-term goals of the Basque Culinary Center.

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The Basque Culinary Center as a pioneering academic institution in gastronomic training has established quality education as a priority line of action. Based on this premise, a series of cross- cutting actions that affect the rest of the Plan have been defined. In this regard, a commitment has been made to educate in reducing, classifying, managing and making use of waste, to attract professionals in the field of sustainability or to organise a variety of different events focusing on this subject.

In addition, another series of actions have been defined, such as the monitoring and optimisation of energy consumption, the recovery of discards, the promotion of healthy living and education in nutritional values, and action on the purchasing policy with a focus on sustainability, etc.

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Outstanding among the new, more concrete measures that directly affect the activity of the centre are the definition of animal welfare criteria to be applied in purchases, designing actions that encourage a reduction in the generation of single-use containers, promoting the consumption of organic food and identifying and implementing projects that improve the impact of the waste generated, such as the Zero FoodPrint initiative from the Basque Culinary World Prize 2019 winner, Anthony Myint.

This ambitious plan is a continuation of the actions that have been taking place since the institution was set up.

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