Context
Ten million tonnes of edible food goes to the trash every year in France [1]: a staggering figure and a real challenge to take up when the country is committed to halving food waste by 2025[2]. And if we started by collecting the fruit of abandoned orchards in our region? Or recovering local vegetables that will not be old on the market because they are not properly sized?
With this simple and effective idea as a guideline, several associations have been fighting for some years to reduce this waste by organizing gatherings and gleanings in solidarity. The goodwill, energy and convictions that have saved tons of fruits and vegetables from the trash!
Project
Le Bocal Local is an association whose aim is to fight against "vegetable" waste, by enabling people who have been out of work for long periods to find a professional activity and social ties. “Vegetable” waste is the surplus of fruit trees and other private plantations.
Thus, Le Bocal Local (The Local Jar) contributes to local economic development by creating employment in a logic of sustainable development, of reasoned, diversified and united culture.
The activities of Le Bocal Local consist of intervening in private homes for the maintenance of vegetable gardens and fruit trees, harvesting the surplus production and redistributing it either as such with local food associations, or in processed form (jars, canned food, soup and juice). Le Bocal Local also offers the creation of educational growing areas on land made available by the municipalities, areas called “vegetable gardening areas”.
Le Bocal Local also wishes to develop an anti-waste cannery activity, where the products to be preserved will come from individuals as well as from producers or other partners.
Project leaders
Stéphanie Dartigue has always wanted to support and contribute to the development of actors and beneficiaries in the social and medico-social sector.
For more than a year, the Bocal Local project matured and in 2015 became an association, recognized in the general interest by the government. This recognition allows generous donors to deduct their donations for tax purposes, thanks to the tax revenues that Le Bocal Local can issue.
Le Bocal Local is supported by numerous partners: Gironde Conseil Général, Aquitaine Region, alimentation.gouv, Commune de Pompignac, Bordeaux Métropole, ARS, Manger Better Move More, Le Parfait, Kokopelli, La Cabane à Projets and many more.
The Little Extra
T.R.A.C.E, Springboard towards an Evolutive Communal Agricultural Management, is the brand new device proposed by Le Bocal Local to respond proactively to the question of the supply of collective catering (schools, meal delivery, nursing homes ...) of fruit and vegetables.
This tailor-made support allows elected officials to reflect on the relocation of their food capacity and to take control of the issue of food.
Written by Clémence Guignard, volunteer LFC - April 2019.
Last modification : 06 Apr 2020.
Le Bocal Local
Le Bocal Local is an association whose aim is to fight against "vegetable" waste, by enabling people who have been out of work for long periods to find a professional activity and social ties.