Together with our partners from the #SinDesperdicio (#ZeroWaste) platform, we launched the #SinDesperdicioBogotá contest, which will award prizes for $20 million Colombian pesos to four innovative, viable and impactful solutions that reduce the loss and waste of food in Bogotá’s supply chain. The call will be open for applications until October 11th, 2020.
In Colombia, 9.7 million tons of food are lost and wasted each year, enough to feed the population of Bogotá in the same period. Out of every 3 tons of food produced in the country, one ends up in the garbage. The annual cost of these losses and wastes amounts to $45,365 million Colombian pesos. With the #SinDesperdicioBogotá contest we seek to promote innovative solutions to these challenges.
We organize this contest in coordination with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and all the partners of #SinDesperdicio, a platform of partners committed to working for a Latin America without food losses or waste: IBM, Nestlé, The Coca-Cola Company, Grupo Bimbo, OXXO, The Dow Chemical Company, FAO, the Consumer Goods Forum, The Global FoodBanking Network and the World Resources Institute. The contest is also the result of collaboration with a number of key local partners such as Wayra, Bancolombia, Innpulsa Colombia, Acción Contra el Hambre and ANDI.
Meet the winning projects of #SinDesperdicioMéxico.
“Food loss and waste have large-scale economic, nutritional and environmental impacts. By reducing or avoiding them, we promote the efficient use of resources such as water, energy, land and labor in their production. With the #SinDesperdicio platform, we seek to promote innovation in Latin America, to generate in-depth solutions to the challenges we face as a society,” said Carlos Hurtado, our Sustainable Development Manager.
Technological and social innovation can be part of the solution to this enormous challenge facing the region. That is why we launched the #SinDesperdicioBogotá contest. The solutions can be technological, financial or related to processes and must have, at least, a minimum viable product (MVP) or some market validation. Twelve finalists will be selected, who will have access to a portfolio of personalized training and mentoring led by Wayra. These finalists will have the opportunity to present a final pitch in front of a jury that will select the four winning projects, which will receive seed capital estimated at $20 million Colombian pesos.
The situation of poverty and the difficulties of ensuring access to food for the entire population were exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, making it even more necessary to solve the challenges of loss and waste and food security. Considering the areas associated with the region’s supply chain, we have defined four challenges for the #SinDesperdicioBogotá contest:
– #AcercaElCampo (Bring the field closer)
– #MásvidaParaLaComida (More life for food)
– #RescateDeAlimentos (Rescuing food)
– #LaComidaSeTransforma (Food transforms)
Applications can be made through the website sindesperdicio.net/concursos/bogota, where the complete description of the contest can be found. This is the fourth innovation contest promoted within the framework of this platform, after the implementation in Argentina in 2019, Mexico in 2020 and Central America in 2020.
