São Paulo, December 22, 2021 – The inauguration of the Horta na Escola project, created by iFood with support from Elo, takes place today in Ferraz de Vasconcelos. The initiative aims to invest in combat to food insecurity in the community and promoting healthy eating from early childhood. The action is managed by Gerando Falcões, which will be responsible for managing the partnership between several NGOs and the city hall, in order to transform EMEF Professora Nurimar Martins Hiar into a reference school in education and sustainability. With the investment also from Elo, the flagship of the iFood Benefits physical food voucher and meal voucher card, it was possible to build a 700m² space for growing vegetables and supplying gardening equipment.
“This project is very interesting, because from the beginning, iFood was born to connect people, through technology. If in the beginning this connection was between restaurants, delivery people and consumers, we also discovered that we can use our greatest expertise to help combat hunger and develop education. The two things are very linked, you can't study without good food, and quality education in turn is the main key to social transformation in the lives of low-income families”, Gustavo Vitti, Vice-President of People and Sustainability at iFood.
The school that will receive the garden already has a center for cultural activities within the Favela 3D na Comunidade program, after school hours. The idea now is to impact even more people, connecting the garden's activities to the pedagogical plan and the surrounding community, through training in the cultivation and distribution of food, so that the project is lasting.
“Without a doubt, sustainable actions are one of the main ways to achieve our mission of transforming favela poverty into a museum piece. We are connecting the pillars of education, food and social development, and the result of this partnership is immeasurable. After this pilot project, we hope to implement the initiative in other units and communities, further contributing to a fundamental advance in the context of the Gerando Falcões project, Favela 3D – Digna, Digital e Desenvolvida – which aims to interrupt the cycle of poverty in favelas, through different fronts”, says Ellen Pimentel, Network Expansion Manager at Gerando Falcões.
The garden's projection is to produce 1.2 tons of diversified food per month. The project will be implemented with the support of the institutions Organización Cidades sem Fome, responsible for the construction and maintenance of the school garden in order to generate a positive impact on student nutrition, and Pé de Feijão, responsible for engagement events, training of educators and caregivers, with the aim of increasing confidence in using the garden as a pedagogical platform. “When children and teenagers participate in planting, caring for and harvesting the garden and orchard within the school, they gradually gain a greater repertoire of all the diversity of fresh foods that exist. By getting involved in the cultivation process, the proposal is that children and other impacted people create an emotional relationship and the increase in consumption of fruits and vegetables comes in a more natural way.”, Luisa Haddad, co-founder of Pé of Beans. The implementation of the project envisages the training of educators and community residents to be the successors in caring for the garden, and thus offering a continuous legacy to the community.
In addition to the vegetable garden, a mobile recycling bin will also be installed in the community, this time, in partnership with Coletando. The recycling point promotes the correct disposal of waste, a new source of income for collectors and benefits the environment with the correct destination of waste to the recycling industry, reducing the impact on the ecosystem. The objective of the project is, little by little, to increase the waste recycling rate in Brazil, which today is only 4% of total disposal.
To this end, the Coletando, Reciclou, Ganhou!!! This will ensure that the disposal generates income for the community. The cashback, arising from the correct delivery of materials, will be deposited on a card that the resident will receive and can be used in any store. Thus, the idea is to build a society capable of managing its own consumption in an organized way. The recycling point will be managed by two residents of the region, to increase the participatory bond and engagement.
Actions aimed at combating food insecurity
iFood has commitments made through the pillars of Education, Environment and Inclusion. In these spheres, initiatives seek to combine technology and the union of different entities with the aim of combating hunger. The company invests in urban gardens in schools as part of its goals to achieve these commitments. Three schools in the east zone of São Paulo and another 2,400 students have already been impacted with the help of OSCIP Cidades Sem Fome and the NGO Gerando Falcões.
In partnership with Begreen, iFood also has a vegetable garden in a space of 950m², aimed at growing fresh, pesticide-free fruits and vegetables. The urban farm, located on the top floor of the iFood headquarters, takes all these items free of charge to hundreds of families and communities through the Osasco Food Bank. Each month, the garden produces around 1.5 tons of this food, which is directed to more than 3,000 needy families.
Furthermore, during the in-app ordering process, in the final step before completing the purchase, it is possible for the customer to include a value of R$2, R$5 or R$10 which is directly forwarded to iFood partner NGOs. More than R$14 million has already been raised.
Actions aimed at correct waste disposal
iFood Regenera is a program that encompasses several projects to deliver more to the environment than we consume, with environmental goals. By 2025, the aim is to eliminate plastic pollution from iFood deliveries and eliminate CO2 emissions from deliveries.
Voluntary disposal points for recyclable waste, also known as PEVs, were implemented in large cities. There are already 78 collection sites in the states of São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Bahia. The estimated recycling capacity is approximately 440 tons per month.
Within Regenera, iFood also entered into a partnership with eureciclo. In order to promote improvements in the recycling chain, a technological structure was developed to increase the positive socio-environmental impact for two cooperatives in Rio Grande do Sul. This will increase the cooperatives' production by more than 40% by the end of 2022.
In partnership with the startups Greening and Plataforma Verde, the reverse logistics of iFood bags was developed across the country, thus, the company eliminated the disposal of these backpacks in landfills. In partnership with Retalhar, the bags are transformed into new products, such as bags and fanny packs. The unused parts go to co-processing to serve as material for energy generation. More than 105 tons of bags have already been reused.
Recicla Orla is a project by the startup Polen with Orla Rio and sponsored by iFood. Launched in July 2021, the partnership has already removed more than 116 tons of trash from Rio's sands, which are transformed into beach-themed gifts.
About iFood
iFood, a reference in online food delivery in Latin America, has 60 million monthly orders. Having been on the market for ten years, the Brazilian company is also present in Colombia. It works together with partners with initiatives that bring together business intelligence and management solutions for the approximately 270 thousand restaurants registered in more than a thousand cities throughout Brazil. iFood has important investors, such as Movile, a global leader in mobile marketplaces, and Just Eat, one of the largest online ordering companies in the world. iFood News was recently launched, an iFood news portal that promotes current topics such as the New Economy and content about business curiosities, partners' success stories in addition to addressing trends and innovation in the segment.
About Gerando Falcões
Gerando Falcões is a social development ecosystem that works as a network to accelerate the impact power of favela leaders from across the country who have a common dream: to put favela poverty in a museum. Its focus is on transformative initiatives, capable of generating long-term results. The project delivers education, economic development and citizenship services and executes systemic transformation programs in communities, such as Favela 3D.
About Collecting
Coletando has existed as an energy efficiency project since 2013, implementing the waste exchange program for a discount on the energy bill, generating socio-environmental and economic impact for communities in a state of vulnerability. Over the years, Coletando added Fintech technology to its management system, which allowed it to create the first Ecological Circular Economy currency in the world. It currently has around 15 Licensees in 4 states in Brazil and has recycled around 2500 tons of waste since its existence, generating more than R$600 thousand reais in income for several families who make a living from recycling. For companies that hire the program's services, the benefit is monitoring the entire packaging return cycle, which ensures compliance with socio-environmental policies and engagement with the community and consumers. The platform provides real-time information so that we know the path that the packages take and thus guarantee the correct destination given to them. Traceability, impact indicators and consumption data are some of the information available through the Coletando platform.
About Elo
Elo is one of the main Brazilian payments technology companies. With ten years on the market, it has more than 140 million cards issued in partnership with more than 30 issuers. Its acceptance encompasses 14 million establishments across the country, in addition to 200 countries and territories, as a result of the partnership with Discover Global Network, Discover Financial Services' global payments brand. Elo is ranked first in the 2021 ranking of the Best Companies to Work for in Barueri and the Region, according to Great Place to Work.
About the Beanstalk
Pé de Feijão is an organization with the aim of supporting people and communities to transform their lives and the world through healthier and more sustainable eating. Using engaging approaches and active methodologies, we work with training for the entire school community to increase the confidence of educators in using the garden, kitchen and compost bin as pedagogical tools. By working on the food cycle from an early age, we increase the chances that children and young people will make increasingly conscious choices that are good for their health and the environment!
About the Cities Without Hunger Organization
Cidades sem Fome is a Civil Society Organization of Public Interest (OSCIP) founded in 2004 in the city of São Paulo. Its main objective is to generate employment through the cultivation of community gardens for the production of organic food in degraded urban areas, generating income and local consumption. Currently concentrated in the East Zone of São Paulo. Its projects are divided into two fronts: urban community gardens in neighborhoods and gardens in schools.
For more information:
iFood News Portal and Instagram iFood News
Other contacts:
Press | Ágora Comunica Agency
Email: ifood@agoracomunica.com.br or press@ifood.com.br