The city of Toledo deployed in 2006 the Social Kitchen and the PRs (popular restaurants), and thus extrapolated the bounds of pure and simple welfarism reaching the implementation of a public policy of social assistance by ensuring access to a quality eating for the poorest layers of the population.
Daily meals of Social Kitchen are produced in one location, in facilities that have also a bread factory and a soybean processing plant.
http://boaspraticas.org.br/index.php/en/2014-05-28-17-59-24/food-security/482-social-kitchen-and-opular-restaurants#sigFreeId2e8b569547
The initiative monitors the PAA (food acquisition Program) and PNAE (National School Feeding Program), both programs from family agriculture, meeting the needs of 30 municipal schools, with 12,000 meals a day, and about 3,000 other daily meals, directed to the 05 popular restaurants.
Finally, the initiative also provides snacks for CRAS (reference centers of Social Assistance), for seniors, for the Pastoral da Criança (Child care) and about 10 other social entities.
A - General information
START: 12/2006 (in progress)
EXECUTING ENTITY: Town Hall of the municipality of Toledo through the Administrative Secretariat
CO-EXECUTING ENTITIES: Municipal Secretary of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply – SAPA
PARTNERS: State University of West Paraná – UNIOESTE/Campus Toledo, Parana Institute of Technical Assistance and Rural Extension – EMATER, Rural Workers Union, Toledo Rural Union, National Rural Learning Service – SENAR, Paranaense University – UNIPAR, Federal Southern Border University – UFFS/Campus Realeza, ITAIPU Binacional, Municipal Environmental Council – CMMA, Municipal Council of Food and Nutrition Security – COMSEA
PRESENTED BY: Luiz Carlos Bazei and Sofia Carminati Perinazzo
RESOURCES: Own and third parties
VALUE RANGE: Above U$25.000
CATEGORY: Project
MAIN THEMATIC AREA: Food and nutritional security
KEYWORDS: Food and nutritional security, Health promotion, Preventive Health, Nutrition Education, Family Farming, Welfarism, Human Rights, Popular Restaurants, Food acquisition program, National School feeding program
TARGET AUDIENCE: Food-insecure population
LOCATION: Urban area
GEOGRAPHICAL RANGE: Microregional
SPECIFIC AREA OF DEPLOYMENT: Municipalities of Ouro Verde do Oeste, São José da Palmeiras, São Pedro do Iguaçu, Assis Chateubriand, Marechal Cândido Rondon, Cascavel, Palotina, Tupãssi, Quatro Pontes, Entre Rios, Toledo
Observation: These municipalities are covered by the practice because Toledo receives many visitors, patients, vendors and formal and informal workers of all municipalities listed
.
B - Description of practice
1- BACKGROUND
This good practice was originated due to the difficulties faced by many families for the marketing of their products. This marketing was going door to door and there was not any kind of organization or cooperation in this regard.
Also contributed to the beginning of the practice, the minimization of food insecurity in the municipality, because many workers depended on food brought to their home, because their workplaces did not provide and had no concern for the food security of its employees. In addition, poor families did not have enough income to eat lunch in restaurants, the elderly had inadequate nutrition at home, among other social issues.
The compulsory purchase of 30% of the value of the resources of the National Fund for School Meals, directly to family agriculture made possible the organization of a regional household production, directed toward the purpose of preparation of school meals.
In addition, the municipality of Toledo chose to make structural changes relating to the hiring of labor and facilities, with the purpose of reducing costs, thus improving inventory management of schools and making use of facilities provided by Justice (company dissolved by petition for bankruptcy).
The municipal departments involved, such as the Social Assistance, Department of Education and Department of Agriculture and Livestock, together with the FUNTEC (Technological Fund) launched the Social Kitchen as a solution to the food security of the population, seeking for this purpose, information from similar experiences and successful in other cities of the country.
2- GENERAL OBJECTIVE
This initiative had as main objective to minimize the food insecurity situation in the municipality of Toledo improving the quality of life of the population by promoting and acting within the issue of food security by minimizing the difficulties faced by family producers in trade issues and production of their products.
Specific Objectives:
- Reduce risks and diseases originated from nutritional deficiencies in population;
- Promote preventive health measures on population;
- Enhance and encourage family farming;
- Promote the permanence of the producer in the field;
- Ensure the acquisition of healthier food, and in appropriate quantity and quality of daily caloric needs of the population, recognizing the feeding as one of the basic human rights to be included in public management.
3 - SOLUTION ADOPTED
The initiative of the Social Kitchen went through several steps, to consolidate as an appropriate solution for the food security of the city of Toledo, and now also as regional solution. Namely:
1. Awareness:
It began with an agreement established with the Federal Government, through the PAA Federal, along with a partnership with EMATER, for awareness of the producers. There was also, the operation of the Municipal Secretary of Agriculture, through the work of persuasion with the producers. In order to give credibility to the program of the PAA, action that involved jointly, the Rural Workers Union. There was also, the initiative for improvements for the outflow of family crops, through repair and maintenance of rural roads. Currently, the work is conducted by the Department of Administration, Department of education and Department of Agriculture and Livestock, in a constant expansion translated by serving an increasingly significant portion of the population.
With the layer of the population met by the initiative, a work of cultural change, eating habits and awareness of a healthy eating, adequate in quantity and quality for a balanced nutritional diet was made. Also the notions of equal rights between beneficiaries, acceptance of the working model of the popular restaurants, opening hours of the restaurants for community associations that use the same spaces.
2. Implementation:
First the creation of a restaurant as a pilot project. With the passage of time and the successful outcome of the pilot project 05 more restaurants were deployed and 03 more will be added in the future.
After that, a pilot project directed to the production of food for 09 municipal schools was deployed, which has been extended to the 26 schools, currently met by the Social Kitchen. In addition, a social bread factory, established by donations of equipment by Rotary and submission to edicts of the MDS (Ministry of Social Development), for expansion and improvements of the kitchen and bakery.
The soybean processing plant, which already existed in another space, was reallocated with the Social Kitchen, allowing the centralization of food production and the use of all waste from food manufacturing processes.
3. Monitoring and evaluation:
At the same time with the previous phases, the initiative Social Kitchen carries out always monitoring of the developed actions, either through satisfaction surveys, meetings with producers, daily contacts with users, interviews with beneficiaries, contact with welfare entities through the COMSEA (Municipal Council of Food and Nutrition Security), among others.
Including, planning the Food and Nutritional Security Plan of the Municipality, with completion set for the year of 2016. The indicators provided by the IBGE (Brazilian Institute of geography and statistics), in this issue corroborate the assessment of the improvement arising from reviews of the previous situation, when contrasted with the current reality of the municipality of Toledo and region covered by the initiative.
4 - RESULTS ACHIEVED
As a main result of the initiative "Social Kitchen" we can include the establishment of a sales market for producers. Such a result was only possible due to a whole series of parallel benefits, namely:
- Organization of fairs-01 initially in the Center, later the creation of PAA with 10 Federal Trade Fairs;
- Number of producers who benefit from the PAA Federal - initially 339 producers with individual quota of R$ 4,500.00, with total sum of resources of R$1.525.500,00 approximately - currently the individual quota is R$ 6,500.00 and has registered 215 producers with resource availability of R$ 769,712.03;
- Number of producers who benefit from the PAA Municipal (Program created exclusively by the municipality to meet the need of products used by the Social Kitchen)-currently, there are 173 registered and 61 are producers only in the PAA Municipal and 112 are enrolled in both programs (PAA Federal and Municipal)-with a resource set at R$ 861,472.75;
- Creation of informal associations of rural working women-03 associations;
- Cores for the production of milk products (did not existed in the region before the program)-01 core;
- Cooperatives- creation of 01 producers cooperative;
- Training of producers for supply of properly produced product - through EMATER, UNIOESTE and Rural Union;
- Promotion of production through the Municipal Department of Agriculture - supply of machinery, seeds and production incentive;
- Reducing costs of the procedures for food safety supply for the population-with public employees and purchases of materials in negotiated bidding processes;
- Improvements in inventory control processes and validity of the food- onsite monitoring;
- Compliance with the target of 60% on the acquisition of the production of family agriculture, as guidelines of the National Program of School Feeding;
- Number of services in the popular restaurants - initially 500 meals a day, currently 2,000 meals a day in 05 restaurants;
- Number of services to full-time schools meals - initially 150 children currently 688 children;
- Number of services to schools in the urban perimeter - initially 09 schools, currently, 26 schools;
- Constitution of a municipal food acquisition program (PAAM).
In addition, there are also the following results to know:
- Promote food and nutritional education of the population;
- Reduction of chronic diseases (hypertension, diabetes, hypercholesterolemia);
- Creation of the Municipal Chamber of Inter-sectorial food and nutrition security;
- Municipal plan of food and nutritional security;
- Preparation of booklets on food and nutritional security; and
- Gradual changes in eating habits of the population.
5 - RESOURCES NEEDED
The current structure for the implementation of the initiative "Social Kitchen and Popular Restaurants" consist of:
- Team: 01 director, 01 coordinator, 06 nutritionists, 02 administrative assistants, 01 business analyst, 01 agricultural engineer, 08 drivers, 14 assistants of general services, 12 cooks, 44 kitchen assistants, 01 maintenance assistant, 12 trainees, 04 butchers, 01 baker.
- Infrastructure: 01 centralized kitchen, 05 popular restaurants.
- Equipment: cauldrons, stoves, freezers, cold chamber, butcher tools, cooking and baking utensils, caul, scale, soybean plant, combination ovens, fryer, meat grinder, computers, printers, fish de-pulping, machine, soybean waste drying equipment, catering equipment, chairs, tables, vans, food processor, potatoes peeler, stainless steel bench, stainless steel tables, dishwasher, refrigerators and thermal boxes.
- Inputs: perishable and non-perishable foods.
6 - TRANSFER
The idea has been widely replicated, however, in formats adapted to each reality as, for example, in the States of Paraná (Araucária, Cascavel, Foz do Iguaçu, Maringá, Londrina, Goioerê, Quatro Pontes, Pato Bragado, Realeza, Ouro Verde do Oeste, Francisco Beltrão), Santa Catarina (Florianópolis and Caçador), Minas Gerais (Contagem and Uberaba), Rio Grande do Sul (Porto Alegre), Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Mato Grosso (Lucas do Rio Verde) and Federal District (Brasília).
We can also quote some Latin America countries, such as Cuba, Bolivia and Venezuela.
7 - LESSONS LEARNED
This initiative showed that, for the process to be applied correctly there must be planning above everything. In addition, and for the success of the initiative, there should be a constant encouragement to family agriculture, a careful identification of the audience to be assisted, permanent training of employees, an interconnection between secretariats and municipal, State and federal programs.
The transfer to the populations of knowledge and guidelines for healthy and balanced nutrition, hygienic practices, ways to avoid waste, recovery of the environment and sustainability concepts are often essential.
However, the main factor of success of the initiative can be attributed to the solution of concentrating food production in a single location (acquisition, receipt, disposition and distribution).
On the other hand, the main bottlenecks identified throughout the construction process of the initiative point to the following factors:
• Difficulties to promote fruit production;
• Difficulties in obtaining variety in vegetable production;
• Difficulties in promotion and dissemination of food and nutritional education practices;
• Difficulties in strengthening of the Municipal Council of food and nutritional security;
• Difficulties in training processes of the cooks;
• Difficulties in establishing a budget autonomy.
8 - ORIGINALITY OF THE PRACTICE
The same format of practice "Social Kitchen and Popular Restaurants” also occurs in the municipalities of Uberaba (Minas Gerais) and Joao Pessoa (Paraiba). However, this initiative of the municipality of Toledo has aroused the attention and interest of several municipalities in Brazil, and even in other countries.
Project visits are allowed from Monday to Friday, between 7:00 to 17:00. Preferably between the months of February to November.
Groups of max 10 visitors
