UNIR: for Christmas without food waste

Christmas is coming and with it the abundant meals. Preparing all the meals with the family creates a lot of stress before the holidays. But beyond the pre-party… What happens the day after a big meal? Where is all the food that we haven’t finished going?

Yesterday the third UNIR debate of this course took place with the theme “This Christmas, let’s say goodbye to wasted food.” In addition to the screening of two short films, the debate included the participation of Helena Calvo, a Food Waste Warrior from Too Good To Go, an app that fights against food waste. Thus, this third meeting aimed to raise awareness of the large amount of food we waste and its effect on the planet.

Too good to go

Helena Calvo introduced the theme with a color image similar to a bar code, a graph that shows the rise in temperatures and global warming in a very worrying way. “To fight this global warming, one of the actions at an individual level that we can do is combat food waste,” explained Helena.

Calvo explained the seriousness of food waste. A large number of resources are used only to produce and transport food to our table, resources that are multiplied if we throw them away without consuming them. In addition to not taking advantage of food that would have been necessary at another table or in other parts of the world, it becomes waste, which must be transported, contributing even more to global warming.

Too Good to Go was born to fight against this surplus of food. It is an application that offers users the possibility of buying surplus food from their nearest establishments at the end of the day. The shops prepare surprise packs for customers who take them home at a discounted price. Too Good to Go already has over 2 million users in Spain, and has already managed to save over 2 million food packs that would have been wasted. The application also sends feedback to establishments, so that many of them become aware of their waste and reduce it.

Freeze, share, combine

After explaining how the App works, the debate started, and Calvo answered some doubts. In closing, she gave some advice on how to limit our waste. For example, planning meals in advance. She also advised loving ‘ugly’ food and not letting ourselves carried by aesthetic judgments, understanding product labeling, and using technology, as many initiatives such as Too Good to Go could help us. Finally, this Christmas she advised to use of the “Three C’s”: freeze, share and combine.

If you have your own ideas on how to combat global warming, find out about our Bachelor in Management, Master in Management or MSc programs and carry out initiatives that improve the planet.