Chefs at the Olympics are making extra food for Rio's poorest
A pair of chefs in Rio will use surplus food from the Olympic Village to feed the poor - and they're aiming to crank out around 5,000 meals per day.
Chefs David Hertz, of Brazil, and Massimo Bottura, of Italy, are the brains behind an operation called RefettoRio Gastromotiva, Reuters reports. Together with a team of 40 culinary colleagues, they have a plan to feed the hungry and combat food waste.
Reuters reports that 30 to 40% of food we produce ends up in landfills. Meanwhile, 800 million people worldwide are hungry, according to the UN. By using extra food from the Olympic village that would otherwise be thrown in the trash, Hertz and Massimo are tackling both issues at once.
"RefettoRio Gastromotiva is going to work only with ingredients that are about to be wasted...like ugly fruit and vegetables, or yogurt that is going to be wasted in two days if you don't buy it," Hertz told Reuters. He said he hopes that similar initiatives will be set up at every city hosting the Olympics in the future.
According to an Instagram post from the organization yesterday, ReffettoRio Gastromotiva has serving meals to Rio's hungry since Tuesday, but is not yet open to visits from the general public.
Learn more about the project here.