Carrefour : and its Foundation sponsors of “RefettoRIO Gastromotiva” integration and anti-waste restaurant opened in Rio for the Olympic Games

'RefettoRIO Gastromotiva' is a restaurant designed to promote social integration that will be distributing free meals to underprivileged populations in Rio de Janeiro from 9 Aug during the 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Renowned chefs will create meals using surplus food from restaurants in the Olympic village and short-dated products withdrawn from Carrefour store shelves. The initiative is run by the association Gastromotiva in partnership with Food For Soul and is sponsored by the Carrefour Foundation. In September, RefettoRIO Gastromotiva will become a cookery school where young people from the favelas will be able to train for employment in the food industry, providing them with career opportunities.

The initiative follows on from the project initiated by Italian chef, Massimo Bottura, who created an anti-waste restaurant promoting social integration at the universal exhibition in Milan, 2015. And this successful Italian experiment has been reproduced in Brazil.

Michelin-starred chefs in the kitchen for the most disadvantaged

A number of renowned international chefs will be working in the kitchen from 9th August onwards. They include: Alain Ducasse, Claude Troisgros and Thomas Troisgros. They will create a different menu every morning from Monday to Friday, using surplus food from the Olympic village restaurants.

Then, in September, the Refettorio restaurant will adopt a different approach. A 'paid lunch for a free dinner' scheme will enable customers will be able to offer dinner to unprivileged populations with which the project is working. At lunchtime, it will open its doors to the public and meals will be paid for. At dinner time, the space will be reserved for disadvantaged people and the meals will be free of charge.

A restaurant for social integration supplied by Carrefour stores

'Refettorio Gastromotiva' will also be supplied by Carrefour stores located nearby, which will donate short-dated products that have been withdrawn from the shelves but are perfectly fit for consumption. These regular donations will form part of the 'Parceria que Alimenta' (Nourishing Partnership) programme run by the food banks. It was created in 2009 to recover unsold food from the country's Carrefour stores on a daily basis and redistribute it to food aid associations and the vulnerable families that they support. Since its creation, the programme has redistributed over 6,000 tonnes of food, which is the equivalent of 180 million meals.

The Carrefour Foundation, Brazil: food to alleviate exclusion

The Carrefour Group, which is one of the leading private employers in the world, is working with its Foundation to promote the integration of young people in over 10 countries, including Brazil. After an initial donation of €50,000 to Gastromotiva to consolidate its culinary training programme and promote entrepreneurship among students, the Carrefour Foundation released an additional donation of €110,000 to enable the association to develop the 'RefettoRIO' project.

Using gastronomy as a vehicle for social change and as a lever for social integration, the Foundation highlights food trade professions, such as bakers, pastry chefs and butchers. In Brazil, it provides training and assistance to talented young people of the favelas with Rede Cidadã, as well in Spain with Fundación Exit, and previously in China with Shanghai Young Bakers. In 2015, the Carrefour Foundation allocated nearly 20% of its budget to encouraging training in the food trade (almost €1,180,720).