Costa Cruises is donating its surplus food from onboard meals to those most in need. The project, officially launched on July 22nd aboard the Costa Diadema during its stop in Savona, aims to collect food prepared but not served to passengers and distribute it to local organizations that assist children in need.
Throughout the year, the Costa Diadema offers week-long Mediterranean cruises, stopping in Savona every Saturday. Each Friday, after dinner and before the ship arrives in port, all the unserved food prepared in the restaurants—ready-to-eat meals—is collected. The following morning, once the ship has docked in Savona, the containers are unloaded and handed over to volunteers from the Food Bank, who take them to Varazze—a town near Savona—specifically to the Fondazione L'Ancora. This organization provides shelter and accommodation for 20 children and food to more than 280 people in need, including refugees.
The joint project of Costa Cruises and the Fondazione Banco Alimentare Onlus, whose objective is to assist those affected by poverty and at risk of social exclusion, has been made possible thanks to Law 166/2016 against the waste of food and medicines.
“We are very proud of this initiative: it is something completely new in the cruise sector and at Costa we have a great interest in participating. We have started with Savona and our flagship ship, the Costa Diadema, but our goal is to involve more and more ships and ports in Italy and the Mediterranean,” commented Neil Palomba, President of Costa Cruises.
Fondazione Banco Alimentare Onlus: Since 1989, Banco Alimentare has been dedicated to recovering undamaged and unexpired food that would otherwise have been destroyed because it was no longer fit for sale. Last year, Banco Alimentare distributed more than 66,000 tons of food. Every day, we distribute food, free of charge, to 8,035 charities that help around 1,600,000 people in Italy, including 135,000 children between the ages of 2 and 7.
