IFCO Donates Environmentally Friendly RPCs All Over the World

IFCO SYSTEMS, the leading global provider of reusable packaging solutions, has donated more than 200,000 RPCs (Reusable Plastic Containers) to food banks since the start of its initiative for the support of food banks.

Wolfgang Orgeldinger, CEO of the IFCO SYSTEMS Group, said: “In many countries of the world, the food banks make an excellent contribution to supply food to people in need. In addition, with their work they help to avoid that good foodstuff is wasted, ending up in the garbage bin.” IFCO provides the food banks on a free-of-charge basis with IFCO RPCs for the collection and distribution of food and, in addition, supports the food banks with the voluntary work of IFCO employees and by co-financing refrigerated vans. “We strongly believe in the food bank activities, and our products and services can be used by the food banks in an optimal way, helping them with their work. We therefore concentrate all our social activities on the food banks and globally support them in all countries where we are active”, Mr Orgeldinger added.

Thus the food banks received ample support in 2015. IFCO Germany added 20 more food banks to those already supported by the company. The free provision of RPCs helps to organise the food bank processes and contributes to clearly reduce or even avoid the costs for the disposal of one way cartons. 4 new refrigerated vans were bought within the framework of the cooperation with the Bundesverband Deutsche Tafel e.V. (Federal Association of German Food Banks) for the co-financing of refrigerated vans.

In Austria, a new refrigerated van for the Viennese food bank was co-financed and delivered to the general manager of the Viennese food bank, Dr. Alexandra Gruber, in October 2015.

IFCO France supported the Banque Alimentaire (www.banquealimentaire.org/) with regular donations of RPCs. Once a year, on the last weekend of November, a national campaign is started by the Banque Alimentaire in big supermarkets with the aim of collecting donated food items that are subsequently distributed to people in need via humanitarian organizations or charities. Also last year, the whole team of IFCO France helped to collect food donations in an Intermarché supermarket. Within 2 days, the team collected 2,630 tons equaling approx. 5,260 meals (up 13.1% from the previous year).

IFCO Italy supported the Banco Alimentare (www.bancoalimentare.it) with the financing of food vouchers for people in need. This donation by IFCO Italy was made possible also thanks to customers who accepted to receive their Christmas greetings by email instead of printed cards. With this Christmas email, the customers were also invited by IFCO to make donations to the Banco Alimentare themselves.

IFCO UK intensified the cooperation with the Trussell Trust in 2015 with the clear objective of increasing the use of RPCs in their network. A total of 15,000 new RPCs were donated, by the help of which the Trussell Trust succeeded in occupying storage space in a more efficient way and reducing the amount of waste that would otherwise have been caused by the use of one-way packaging. More than 40,000 plastic containers have already been donated since the beginning of the cooperation. In addition, IFCO UK also supports the Trussell Trust with a long-time program for the financing of refrigerated vans for food banks. In 2015, a Mercedes Sprinter was delivered to the Brent Foodbank. In December, employees of IFCO UK participated once again at the yearly Christmas basket campaign of the Tower Hamlets Foodbank and helped with the preparation and distribution of Christmas baskets to people in need.

In South America, employees of IFCO BRASIL continued their regular support for the Ong Banco de Alimentos (www.bancodealimentos.org.br/). About 650 new RPCs were donated.

IFCO Spain supported the food banks in Madrid, Huelva and Asturias with RPC donations. In a similar way, also last year IFCO North America continued to support food banks with money and donations in kind, in the form of RPCs.

“From our point of view, the work of the food banks is a very important contribution to support people in need all over the world. IFCO will therefore continue its successful cooperation with the food banks also in 2016”, said Wolfgang Orgeldinger.