Beschreibung der Einrichtung

The Re-food Movement is an independent, citizen driven, 100% volunteer, eco-humanitarian community charity, working to eliminate food waste and hunger on a neighborhood basis, planet wide.

Re-food operates in, of and for the community, working without salaries and avoiding any and all costs/investments that do not serve its mission.

Re-food’s low cost/high productivity model ends food waste, improves the quality of life of people in need, and strengthens the social fabric of the community.
Re-food acts where good food is being wasted, good people are going hungry and people of good will want to construct a "human bridge" between excess and need.

Food Rescue

Re-food rescues good food in real time (at the moment when it loses its commercial value, but still retains its nutritional value), all of which, without our intervention would be thrown away. This abundance of perfectly good food represents an enormous resource in every local community (and adds up to 1/3 of all food produced globally).

Feeding the Hungry

Re-food's rescue operations provide each local Center with an inexhaustible source (collected daily) of free food (in perfect condition) that allows us to meet our second objective: ending hunger in each local community. Re-food’s beneficiaries are identified in articulation with the local support network in each community – no one is excluded, a priori, from receiving Re-food’s food support.
Partnerships

The Re-food Movement is built on partnerships. Besides the thousands of food supply partners, we have hundreds of location partners (the state, cities and local governmental units, churches and religious orders, other associations, businesses and individuals) and hundreds of other support partners, spread out over the many local communities where we are already operating. Every partner gives what they can (we do not do fund raising and we do not ask for money) - in the case of the thousands of volunteers, they give their most precious resource: their time.

Impact (numbers)

Currently (November, 2017) more than 7,000 volunteers are rescuing more than 90,000 meals a month from more than 1,500 food source partners to meet the nutritional needs of more than 6,000 beneficiaries. The Movement is growing rapidly so the numbers are constantly changing – right now we are rescuing and delivering a million meals a year and stopping more than 500 tons of bio mass from polluting our environment.

Impact (community)

Re-food produces a powerful impact in each local community. The first impact is that those people in the local community who suffer from food insecurity are able to secure their nutritional needs and focus on other challenges (this impact is relevant socially as hundreds of people are included in the life of the community in each locale). The second impact is on the volunteers who donate their precious time (2 hours, once a week) to end food waste and hunger in their own local community (this impact is relevant as it provides meaning and happiness to the lives of hundreds of local citizens who want to be part of a force for good in their local community). The third impact is on the community at large as people begin to understand that they have the power to change their world for the better. The fourth impact is that significant amounts of bio residuals are diverted from polluting the environment as each meal rescued goes to feed a hungry person instead of going to the landfill (this impact is relevant environmentally as tons of valuable resources are not wasted).

Governance

Re-food operates as a benevolent citizen powered democracy governed by its principles, values and mission, with interest in producing value (not profit) and strengthening the commonwealth of the community (not personal gain). Decisions are taken by consensus or by vote. Every voice is heard and every vote is counted.

Sustainability

Our economy on based solely on good will (everything we need to do our work is donated, while nothing is sold). A non-profit association provides legal standing and the Movement works internally by building consensus at every level (international, national, regional and local). Each local center is autonomous (but not sovereign), self-sustaining (through local partnerships) and socially sustainable (through a process of constant invitation and renovation).

Replication

Our local model is being re-produced exponentially throughout Portugal (40 centers have opened in six years with 21 others working to open, as of November, 2017). Internationally, we are building the internal capacity to respond to the interest already generated in Madrid, Barcelona, Budapest, Toulouse, Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels, London, Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Luanda and Maputo.

Scope

The conditions necessary for the implementation of the Re-food Model are universal, existing in every community on Earth (we have no ambitions with respect to other planets).