Food for Soul is a non-profit association founded by Massimo Bottura and Lara Gilmore to combat food waste in the interests of social inclusion. Perhaps the name says nothing, but surely it is easy to remember in the year of Expo2015 in Milan the media hype received by the opening of the Refettorio Ambrosiano, the first stone of this project. "Knowledge generates consciousness, consciousness generates responsibility" is the mantra that Massimo Bottura repeats. "What goes around comes around" because life is all a cause-and-effect circle. And karma does not forgive.

The Ambrosian Refettorio

The Refettorio Ambrosiano was created in collaboration with the Caritas Ambrosiana precisely on the occasion of Expo2015. The building, an abandoned theater in Piazza Greco in Milan, had been completely renovated and transformed into a new community canteen. The Refettorio Ambrosiano continues to welcome people in situations of social vulnerability every day and, from Monday to Friday, it offers 96 people a three-course meal prepared from food surpluses collected from the city's markets and supermarkets. The location is also available to the whole neighborhood for the realization of educational projects and cultural events. After the first Refectory many others were born (London, Rio de Janeiro, Paris and soon Harlem in New York), all community cafeterias, where needy guests are welcomed to offer them nutritious and healthy dishes in a convivial atmosphere. «This is not charity, it is culture, Explained Massimo Bottura at the press conference in which MINI announced its support for the project.

Return dignity, not just meals

The Refettorio, like all the other refectories around the world, is not a canteen like all the others. It offers food to the most needy, but actually gives much more than hot pasta. The poverty we are witnessing today is not just an economic poverty, but social isolation, and sharing the table gives first of all an opportunity for conviviality, exchange and humanity. Eating served at the table, in a beautiful place, is part of a project of social inclusion that restores dignity to those who think they have lost it together with work, home and the love of their loved ones. Among the 96 people of the Refettorio of Milan there are immigrants, separated fathers, elderly of the neighborhood, homeless who need first of all to feel part of a family. «Food, calories and hunger are not the real problem. It is not the lack of food the emergency in a city like Milan, but to stop feeling like other people, with the same rights, ”said Cristina Reni, executive director of Food For Soul during a last presentation. It is not the charity that is needed, but the desire to fully include in the society those who for some reason, during their life, feel they have slipped out of it, to the margins. And it is also done through good recipes, nice dishes, design tables and chairs: tearing away from the ugliness with beauty.

The Onlus that collects the support of companies

Food for Soul was created with the aim of encouraging public, private and non-profit organizations to create and support community canteens all over the world, and to involve professionals from different sectors, including chefs, artists, designers and food distributors, in order to promote an approach alternative to building community projects. Now they've managed to get involved too MINI. Responsibility, sharing, inclusion and recovery of urban spaces to relocate them and give them a new dignity that serves to restore hope to people, are the values ​​shared by MINI and Food for Soul. This is why the automotive brand has chosen to support this association and join the change by taking the first step worldwide in the Corporate and Social Responsibility strategy. This is how a brand can not only inspire, but above all contribute to change, to develop an increasingly sensitive, sustainable and visionary society, respecting and recognizing universal human values. "The positive thing is that it is consumers who ask for this" return "to society," explains Stefano Ronzoni, MINI director.

Return, because life is a circle

Return, is the theme of the Food for Soul project. Return all that would be wasted, such as food, time, energy. At the Refectory the surplus food is eaten, at the same time the supporting companies redistribute a piece of their profits (the amount of MINI's unconditional contribution to the Food Four Soul project remains a mystery), but the signal is positive. It is no longer "green washing", and companies know it well. MINI launched its first electric car this year, after a decade of investments in sustainable mobility. «What goes around comes around" Bottura concludes. It is karma, it can be as generous as a hot dish or it cannot be forgiven at all.