The FAO, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, celebrated World Food Day, an event joined by numerous companies and organizations, including Costa Cruises. The company reinforced its commitment to recognizing the value of food through 4GOODFOOD, a pioneering program in the global cruise industry aimed at halving the amount of surplus food produced on board its ships by 2020, ten years ahead of the target set by the UN's 2030 Agenda in its Sustainable Development Goal 12.3.
Currently, after nearly 18 months of implementation, the 4GOODFOOOD project has already achieved a reduction of over 35% in food surplus on board Costa ships. Through this program, the company also supports the “Food Gardens in Africa” project, run by the Slow Food Foundation for Biodiversity. Thanks to this collaboration, Costa Cruises has adopted 100 gardens in Kenya, Mozambique, Madagascar, South Africa, and Tanzania.
Likewise, thanks to 4GOODFOOD and the collaboration with Fondazione Banco Alimentare Onlus, Costa has managed to give a second life to 150,000 portions of food that have been donated to 12 different charities.
Stefania Lallai, Sustainability and External Relations Director of Costa Cruises, stated , “At Costa Cruises, we are committed to working every day to achieve the goals promoted by the FAO. To this end, we have 4GOODFOOD, which embodies our commitment to recognizing the value of food resources and their responsible consumption.”
4GOODFOOD is a comprehensive and far-reaching program whose first phase consists of reviewing the food preparation process and actively involving crew members and guests.
Another initiative within this project is the onboard awareness campaign, “Taste Don’t Waste,” through which the cruise line aims to promote responsible food consumption in its ship buffets. The campaign appeals to guests' values and emotions, focusing on raising awareness rather than imposing rules. It also takes into account the multicultural nature of Costa's diverse clientele and the fact that they are on vacation.
Thanks to their collaboration with Winnow, specialists in process optimization in professional kitchens, Costa has included new scales in all its kitchens and has carried out a record that has allowed them to map, quantify and analyze the waste generated during the processing and preparation of food.
The “Taste Don’t Waste” awareness campaign is directly linked to the idea of giving back to the community. In fact, Winnow has calculated the reduction in the negative impact of onboard guests thanks to their responsible behavior and actions, resulting in a tangible and measurable outcome: Costa Cruises decided to donate the equivalent of the savings to the “Food Gardens in Africa” project. Thanks to this donation, Costa has adopted 100 gardens, 85 of which have already been built, while the remaining 15 will be completed by early 2020.
In a complex environment like a cruise ship, some food waste is inevitable, as a zero-waste policy is structurally impossible. Therefore, Costa Cruises devised a solution to prevent food prepared but not served on board from going to waste. Thanks to a collaboration between Costa Cruises and Fondazione Banco Alimentare Onlus, the company unloads unserved food to share with people in need. This initiative is carried out regularly in the Italian ports of Savona, Civitavecchia, Bari, Palermo, Genoa, and Naples, and has already been extended to other ports such as Marseille, Barcelona, Guadeloupe, and Martinique. To date, more than 150,000 portions of gourmet food have been distributed to a total of 12 charities. Costa Cruises aims to involve other ports in this initiative and expand its food donation model to help as many disadvantaged communities as possible.
