A truck maneuvers in the large parking lot that extends at the foot of a exposed brick building on Motors Street in the Zona Franca. A dozen people go up and down moving packages, wheeling pallet jacks, preparing food boxes, and sticking post-its on a packed whiteboard. Workers and volunteers—especially volunteers—keep the well-oiled machinery of the Banc dels Aliments de Barcelona active, which has been providing food to vulnerable people for nearly 40 years, while also combating food waste.
The headquarters of the Banc d'Aliments de Barcelona, which has been there for 20 years, receives a dozen food deliveries every day, including several trailers. "A good day is about five trailers," explains Carmen from the reception area of the warehouse, next to the entity's director, Elisabet Viladomiu. The control of arrivals and departures is reflected on the seemingly chaotic but tremendously organized whiteboard that presides over the room next to the distribution area.
From the warehouse, about 20 kilos of food are distributed daily through the various programs led by the Banc dels Aliments de Barcelona to provide food to vulnerable people in diverse situations, who reach the entity through social services. Some food comes from donations, and others are subsidies or are acquired through money that companies and individuals donate to the organization, explains Viladomiu. It smells of tomato; dozens of boxes are stacked next to the director, who details how farmers can donate their surpluses or a certain amount of their production to food banks and receive in return a price from the European agricultural policy: "It is a market regulation mechanism in which the product is not destroyed or thrown away; it is used through food banks."
Like this one, there are many ways in which food arrives at the Zona Franca warehouse, including that of the Gran Recapte. However, although it is the best-known facet of the Banc dels Aliments, what is collected on the day does not represent more than 15% of the total donated by the entity per year. "What we collect lasts about two or three months; it is a relevant part, but it is more relevant as an awareness campaign," claims Viladomiu: "The Gran Recapte is an awareness and citizen participation campaign, and it is the moment when the Banc dels Aliments gets into the minds of all citizens." With more than 1,400 collection points from 30 different chains in Catalonia, the day, which started in a single supermarket, is more than consolidated and "established."
In total, the entity moved 35 million euros in food last year, which reached 114,000 people. "Food does not lift anyone out of poverty, but it helps," emphasizes Viladomiu, who highlights the transformation process affecting these figures: in recent years, the number of people served by the entity has progressively decreased, from more than 140,000 in 2021. A crucial role in this reduction has been played by the change in European regulations, which, starting in 2024, implemented the use of debit cards to ensure access to food for vulnerable people, instead of doing so through food banks. However, with the change of model "some people have been left out," highlights the director, in a context where 20% of the Spanish population cannot access the necessary food to maintain a healthy diet by their own means.
"We are at a moment of change, and the situation still needs to stabilize," adds Viladomiu. But the entity has not only seen the number of people served decrease, but also the food it receives: companies are increasingly efficient and produce what is consumed, so there is less surplus. And, if there is, they often look for other channels to sell the products, even if at a lower price. Efficiency is positive, but the impact on entities like the Banc dels Aliments is not minor. "Furthermore, in 2020 the Catalan law against food waste was approved. Are we worried about receiving less? No, because we have accepted it," and the entity has promoted other avenues, such as financial donations with which it then buys food.
But the bank works to combat food waste not only from companies, but also in homes, through awareness. And it is that in Catalonia, 288 kilos of food are thrown away every minute. It is the equivalent of an entire container going to waste every 60 seconds. Although at a far from ideal pace, "we are improving," due to this awareness, and also due to the appearance of applications and tools that contribute to curbing this waste, not only food. And it is that, when food is thrown away, not only food is thrown away, but everything that has been necessary to produce it and bring it home is wasted, whether it be liters of water, space, transport or other foods or compounds.
With this objective of reducing food that ends up in the trash and facilitating access to healthy eating, the Banc d'Aliments de Barcelona is approaching its 40th anniversary. It does so accompanied by 150 volunteers and 22 workers, who keep alive a work that Jordi Peix started in 1987, after learning a year earlier about the activity of food banks. It was at an international fair in Paris, which he visited as then general director of Agrarian Industries of the Generalitat: a small stand of the Banque Alimentarie caught his attention, and he proposed to bring the initiative to Barcelona, where the first food bank at the state level was born.
"We will adapt to new realities with the forms of social aid that are required at all times"Since then,the bank's ultimate ambition is to become unnecessary; it would mean that poverty and food waste have disappeared. "We don't know if the time will come when they disappear, or if one will go before the other," reflects Viladomiu. And, what should be the first to disappear? "I had never thought of it that way, but for me, it should be poverty."
Be that as it may, and however the situation and the modalities of access to food for vulnerable people change, "the Banc dels Aliments will continue to help people who need it," guarantees Viladomiu. "States will have to develop aid channels, and they are already doing so, and we will adapt to the new realities with the forms of social aid that are required at all times." For now, that maximum ambition of disappearing by ceasing to be necessary is far off; it's time to keep existing, from the capacity for adaptation and from determination, at the forefront.