COVID-19. Farmers and traditional distribution are organized to provide home shopping. After flop of the GDO (Large Organized Distribution) inecommerce food - which in March 2020 recorded a growth of 47% compared to the previous year, except go haywire on sites and deliveries - new initiatives are flourishing to deliver food and other products to the homes of Italians forced home by the coronavirus emergency.
Networked shops on iorestoacasa.delivery
www.iorestoacasa.delivery is the newborn portal that collects small businesses, from food to pharmacies. This is a site 'glocal', which aims to bring local retailers together on a national platform. By entering your postcode (Postal Code) on the site, you can access a selection of the shops available for home delivery.
'In small towns often you do not find all the goods you need, you have to look to the neighboring country. But this was becoming difficult. With www.iorestoacasa.delivery we try to do this' (Corrado Tonello, creator of the initiative created by Ennevolte with Loud Digital Studio).
The success of the initiative it depends on everyone's participation. To increase the offer, the organizers invite merchants to subscribe to the (free) service and consumers to solicit the registration of local retailers. Home delivery is not necessarily free - on the contrary, we hope that one will be promoted shared free for disabled, elderly and sick people - as it depends on the policies of each shop.
Farmers and growers directly at home
Fruits and vegetables fresh and km0, meat, cheese, preserves and various other foods - even better if organic - are in turn delivered to their homes by a growing number of local producers. There short supply chain begins to organize itself, finally (!). The most publicized initiative is the delivery of food parcels by the operators associated with Campagna Amica, the foundation of Coldiretti which in normal times animates very popular agricultural markets in the cities.
Small local initiatives they are born here and there like mushrooms. Digital innovation, social networks and organization of deliveries of precious local organic products, typical foods. In Conegliano and its surroundings, for example, the Peasant network, which delivers organic products to your home. In the Varese area, a group of friends has instead activated Autentico, under the motto #VareseNonMolla in partnerships with local shopkeepers and producers.
Work in progress. Sometimes references are few, not enough to form the basket of ordinary shopping. And it is not easy to organize information to the consumer in a few days it is also mandatory in distance selling. Communicating the origin of the oranges distributed in Varese, for example. Little thing, however, compared to the systematic violations of the mandatory rules by Amazon, which even smuggles outlawed pesticides.
Peasant agriculture abandoned by politics
THEpeasant agriculture it is abandoned by politics, nationally and locally. Its protagonists, forced into the unjust closure of farmers' markets, they are now forced to organize delivery systems in a short time, otherwise risking food waste. This is the case of the ten farmers and producers who every Sunday participated in the organic market organized by our friends of the Roma Open Lab association at the CAE (City of the Other Economy), in the former Mattatoio di Testaccio, in the heart of Rome.
Organic fruit and vegetables freshly harvested in the fields of the Lazio countryside, artisanal cheeses made from the grass milk of grazing animals in Abruzzo, organic wines and natural at popular prices, naturally leavened organic bread freshly baked. A roundup of exceptional foods, in terms of quality and price, stranded in the prohibitions to make the market decided by the Municipalities, overcoming national provisions, as the Italian Rural Network points out.
Lack of resources large organizations, small producers who protect the environment and health, vital cells of food sovereignty, today pay the highest price in the agri-food chain. Still active with full engines, fortunately, but inattentive to the treasures of peasant agriculture in the territories.
The 'condominium supermarket'
The first 'Condominium Supermarket' meanwhile opens in Milan, on the initiative of FrescoFridge. The Italian startup has installed 5 'smart' refrigerators in the Social Village Cascina Merlata residential complex, north-west of Milan, serving the more than 900 people residing in the 397 apartments.
The assortment it consists of a variety of ready meals, drinks and smoothies, fruit and vegetables, meats and cheeses, milk and eggs. The supplies come from local operators and the prices are the same as the traditional channels.
A professional journalist since January 1995, she has worked for newspapers (Il Messaggero, Paese Sera, La Stampa) and periodicals (NumeroUno, Il Salvagente). She is the author of journalistic studies on food and has published the book "Reading labels to know what we eat".
