Food donation from cruises: not only Savona but also Civitavecchia!

The joint project between Costa Cruises and Fondazione Banco Alimentare Onlus to recover surplus food produced on cruise ships and redistribute it for social purposes.

Five months after the start of the project in Savona, on Friday 1 December 2017 Costa Cruises and Banco Alimentare launched the recovery of surplus food not served on board Costa Diadema in Civitavecchia. The food prepared but not served in the restaurants of the ship is going to be redistributed to a local organisation that helps disadvantaged young people.

Costa Diadema, which proposes a 7-day itinerary exploring the real Mediterranean throughout the year, stops at Civitavecchia every Friday. On Thursday, all the ready-to-eat dishes prepared in the restaurant areas but not served to guests will be recovered by the cruise staff. The meals will be placed in aluminium containers and then sealed, labelled for traceability and kept in on-board refrigerators. The following morning, after the ship berths in Civitavecchia, the containers will be unloaded and delivered to Banco Alimentare volunteers, who will take them to the association La Repubblica dei Ragazzi, a community that provides support and education for young people with serious family problems.

Marco Lucchini, Secretary-General at Fondazione Banco Alimentare Onlus, said: “From today 36 young people, who live at the association La Repubblica dei Ragazzi, will benefit from very high-quality meals, both in terms of taste and nutritional value. This initiative makes us proud and repays all the efforts made to achieve this excellent result. We are ready to implement next steps of this important project, hoping that it will involve soon also the port of Palermo.”

Maria Chiara Gadda, the Italian deputy who promoted Law No 166/2016, stated: “Today I’m very happy to inaugurate the second step of this initiative. I’m sure that many other ports in Italy and Europe are going to follow the same example”.

Finally, Giuseppe Carino, vp guest experience at Costa Cruises, said that the starting of a second operation in Civitavecchia, “is a concrete sign of our commitment to roll it out to other Italian ports”.

The food donation programme started in Savona in July and since then 8,500 portions of meals have been already recovered and redistributed to people in need. Now Civitavecchia is the second harbour to join the programme. And the quantity of recovered food is certainly going to increase because Costa Cruises and Banco Alimentare are determined to expand the food donation programme: after Savona and Civitavecchia, the intention is to involve other Italian but also European harbours.