MAKE ME HAPPY-HOUR: A project to feed hearts
https://youtu.be/_YfY0-yMGMo
Introducing yourself is never easy, I will start from the basics: my name is Pamela, I am currently attending a master in Food and Beverage Management and I want to change the world. I knew about Unleash Lab 2017 through an inspiring and very talented marketing professor who also taught me that marketing can be a tool also for social purposes. This big event can perfectly match the two main passions I have: food and social responsibility.
I come from a small village in the North of Italy, it counts 4000 inhabitants. I am part of the environment committee of my municipality since 2010. When I started this adventure it was almost like a bet with myself but then I understood that I needed to actively do something to change and improve the world I am living in.
There’s something that for me is very difficult to understand: during my everyday way to college, but actually all around the city I am living in (Milan), I keep on meeting people seeking for money or, worst, food to survive. So I started thinking about how can be possible that I can choose among an infinite choice of food items, someone else even decide to exclude some food items from his diet and some others are starving: all of us are living in the same city. Moreover, in Italy, every year, each person waste around 146 kg of eatable food!!!! That’s why I decided to cooperate with a start up called Foodl. The aim of this app was to help in avoiding food waste: inserting all the ingredients you have at home, it helped you finding the right recipe to use them all, avoiding to let them expire.
However I discovered that 52% of the total food wasted comes from retailers and restaurants. Actually according to the business model of restaurants, it’s very difficult to perfectly forecast the amount of customers you will have (it can be easier only if you work with long term reservations as for example catering services): so if the problem cannot be solved at the origin, why it couldn’t be solved at the end? In this way “Make me happy-hour” came up: starting from the concept of the Italian aperitivo, the idea is to offer good quality fresh food not used and usually thrown away by restaurants/bakeries and supermarkets and serve it to people in need BUT in a pleasant location. Food is no more just a necessity: it’s fancy, it’s trendy, it’s social and it’s art. A person that wants to work in this field has to remember it but mostly has to remember that still there are people that has no choice but considering food just a necessity. We have the power to turn this necessity into a pleasure.
As Massimo Bottura said during his truly inspiring speech at the special edition of #50BestTalks (link attached): “Feed those in need, not only with food but with beauty. Feed their bodies and their souls”. Thanks to him and to his beautiful soul I am sure that other worldwide famous chefs will take the inspiration. In the meanwhile, I am playing my modest role: Natalia Grzybicka, ho.re.ca. channels specialist, interviewed me about my project and about Unleash; soon we could read about us in this new polish online platform dedicated to ho.re.ca professionals: http://madetalks.pl/; hopefully feeding this inspiring circle.
I have a passion about food, I have the enthusiasm for life and the right attitude to help people, I strongly want to make the difference in the world I am living in so which best occasion than do it with all of you?
