Italian Soup Kitchens Serve Gourmet Food

The hungry and homeless are getting to eat decent meals thanks to the Pasta Buono initiative, which redistributes leftovers from top restaurants and grocers across Italy. The Pasta Buono project contacts grocery suppliers, delicatessens, bakers, patisseries, pizzerias, butchers, supermarkets and restaurateurs, and then puts them in touch with charitable organisations such as the Catholic-run Caritas that run soup kitchens. The charities collect scraps and food that might otherwise find its way to the bin, and then redistributes it to help ensure poor and needy get fed. Some of the businesses making donations are top-notch establishments that produce gourmet food. The economic crisis has lead to a rise in unemployment in Italy and the number of Italians seeking help from charities like Caritas. Pasta Buono aims to help those individuals as well as cut back on unnecessary food waste. According to research conducted by the Politecnico di Milano, Italians throw away six million tonnes of food a year. The Pasta Buono initiative started in 2007. It has outlets in Rome, Genoa and Florence. It aims to extend the project to Palermo, Milan and Naples. The non-profit organisation says it helped provide 50,000 meals in 2012. Father Fabio Bartoli, a parish priest at San Benedetto in Rome that feeds some 35 people a day, told news agency AFP: “This initiative is very important. It channels the generosity of shopkeepers and the needs of the poorest.”