The Second Life of Food: When Social Marketing Bridges Solidarity and Waste Prevention

Abstract

Building on the social ecological framework, the case of the Italian Food Bank sheds light on how multi-level social marketing strategies and synergistic collaborations between various groups of stakeholders could create an enabling environment for change that eventually benefits the individuals, communities, environment, and society at large. The Italian Food Bank has been recovering the food that would otherwise end up in landfills in order to redistribute it to charitable organizations for the benefit of those in need since 1989. It further takes an active role in public policy advocacy, spreading the best industry practices and public awareness-raising initiatives aimed at curbing food waste in collaboration with food producers, retailers, public institutions, and other non-profits. In this way, by bridging two urgent social problems—food waste and food insecurity—as well as connecting public, non-profit, and for-profit organizations, it eventually transforms “food recovery” from a cost to a multiplied value, thus creating a win–win and a virtuous circle for all stakeholders involved.