it is im-perfect®
es im-perfect® is a vegetable preserve brand committed to environmental sustainability and social justice. At the Espigoladors Foundation workshop, they make vegetable pates, jams and sauces with local fruits and vegetables discarded from the commercial circuit because they are imperfect, due to price drops or production surpluses. At es im-perfect®, they give them new value through a sustainable model based on the principles of the circular economy. In addition, the es im-perfect® workshop is a space for socio-labor insertion for people at risk of social exclusion.
As explained by the Espigoladors Foundation, in 2013, five years after the 2008 economic crisis, in a context in which social and environmental problems were evident such as high unemployment rates, food poverty in many households, food waste or the difficulty in making agricultural activity viable, the Foundation decided to launch a project with the aim of addressing three challenges:
- Fight for food security.
- Guarantee the right to healthy and sustainable food for the entire population.
- Create job opportunities for groups at risk of social exclusion.
From here and with references such as The Central Kitchen, FoodCycle or Rubies in the Rubble and with the support of programs to promote social entrepreneurship (La Caixa Social Entrepreneurship Program and Start Up Pirates), the project promoters devised the model that has structured Espigoladors' activities since its inception:
- Collection: direct harvest of fruits and vegetables in the fields through picking with volunteers or collection of fruits and vegetables discarded in the post-harvest, sorting or distribution phases to agri-food companies.
- Donation: most of the fruits and vegetables collected are donated to social organizations in nearby neighborhoods and cities. They represent approximately 90% of the food collected in the previous phase.
- Transformation: the rest of the fresh fruits and vegetables are transformed in the socio-labor insertion workshop under the es im-perfect® brand, where preserves such as jams, vegetable pates, creams and sauces are made. Thus, the es im-perfect® employment insertion and food transformation company emerged as a strategy to revalue the recovered fruits and vegetables and to generate job opportunities for people at risk of social exclusion.
- Awareness and advocacy: the entity has also developed an area of projects and education around food waste (Awareness, Knowledge and Research Area).
Finally, it should be noted that, although the project was initially located in Barcelona, it is currently located in Prat del Llobregat. Three factors of proximity with strategic points fit together to implement the model that Espigoladors imagined: proximity to the city of Barcelona, proximity to the wholesale food market (Mercabarna and Parc Logístic de la Zona Franca) and proximity to the agricultural production area (agricultural area of the Llobregat, privileged for vegetable gardening).
The Espigoladors Foundation decides first to promote the creation of the artisanal agri-food transformation workshop and the es im-perfect® brand and later to create the job placement and food transformation company with the following two main objectives:
- Economically revalue and reintroduce into the commercial circuit fruits and vegetables that have been discarded for fresh sale in order to reduce food waste.
- Generate job opportunities for people at risk of social exclusion.
- You should never lose sight of the why. Day-to-day life can be tough and often there are projects that don't go ahead, or that day the machines break down or whatever. Therefore, you must always be in touch with the vision.
- We must understand that the obstacles we encounter sometimes also indicate to us that the path we are trying to follow is not the best.
- You can learn from everything. You just have to find the right people and the desire.
The workshop's total investment expenditure for renovations and initial machinery was between 180,000 and 200,000 euros. The sources of income were as follows (including expenses in other areas):
- Loans: between 100,000 and 120,000 euros.
- A grant from the Waste Agency for waste prevention and food waste.
- A three-year grant from the Daniel and Nina Carasso Foundation, with a total budget of 150,000 euros, was used to implement the entire model. A significant portion of this grant was allocated to the workshop.
The space where the workshop is located from its beginning to the present day is provided by the City Council of Prat del Llobregat.
Due to the changes in accounting, the following data is provided:
From April to December 2021, the main income was sales of products made in the workshop, with a turnover of 460,000 euros.
Some subsidy was also received (unspecified).
The main items of expenditure were human resources, purchase of material and depreciation of machinery.
