How many times have you gone into a restaurant, ordered a dish, and found that your eyes had been bigger than your stomach? Maybe you leave some food on the plate and feed bad for wasting it; maybe you eat it all and feel bad for eating too much.
Meanwhile, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), more than 800 million people around the world are going hungry. Hunger affects children as well as adults: childhood malnutrition is the underlying cause of more than one in three deaths among children under the age of five. According to the World Health Organization, approximately 200 million young children are unable to attain their full development potential because of hunger-related stunting and micronutrient deficiency.
At the same time, FAO estimates that 30-50 percent, or 1.2–2 billion tons, of all food produced never reaches a human stomach. Furthermore, these figures do not reflect the fact that large amounts of land, energy, fertilizers and water have also been lost in the production of foodstuffs which simply end up as waste. This level of wastage is a tragedy, and if we are to succeed in the challenge of sustainably meeting our food demands, it cannot continue.
With this in mind, we created Satisfeito. Satisfeito is a global movement that aims to alleviate child hunger and prevent food waste by providing restaurants and their customers with the chance to help organizations whose work is aimed at feeding hungry children around the world.
When you visit a participating restaurant, you will have the option of choosing your dish in the Satisfeito version, which is one third smaller than the original size. The price charged for that smaller dish will be the same as the original-sized dish, and what the restaurants save in food by selling this smaller plate will be transferred in money to organizations that work towards child food security. The minimum amount that restaurants are required to donate is five percent of the final price of the dish (of course we will encourage restaurants to transfer more than that), and 100 percent of all donations are transferred to organization working towards child food security.
Through our website, Satisfeito.com, consumers will be able to find participating restaurants in their area. The restaurants can sign up and be participants of Satisfeito by following an implementation guide and also by creating an online profile proving its participation in Satisfeito. The people who are part of this movement will be able to see how much money is being raised and transferred through Satisfeito.
In order to turn Satisfeito into a global movement we have made our site available in 3 different languages, English, Portuguese, and Spanish. We’ll also be updating it into other languages as we grow when necessary. We have also developed an application for iPhone and Android that serves as a guide for the consumer to find participating restaurants.
The main purpose of Satisfeito is to shine a new light on the issue of hunger and food waste, showing how simple it can be for people to make a change in the world just by being aware of how hungry they are, and choosing an appropriately sized dish. We strongly believe that if administered properly, food can be saved before it becomes wasted, and used properly to feed those in need.
