Over 400 meals donated
At the end of service, in a Michelin-starred kitchen, there is always something left. Bread that never reached the table. Carefully prepared vegetables that weren't used. Leftover preparations. For years, it was thrown away. This year, no.
On 19 August 2016, Italy approved Law 166, known as the Gadda Law — the first anti-food-waste legislation in Europe. A simple idea: make it easier to donate what's left over, rather than throw it away. Encourage the recovery of surplus food before it becomes waste.
Today, ten years on, the results were presented at Palazzo Montecitorio in Rome: almost four million tonnes of food recovered, 40 million packs of medicine, a total value of over €10 billion.
Not bad, for a law born from a simple idea.
In 2026, we tried to do our part.
The Cooking Class (No Waste) was born in the kitchens of La Stüa de Michil in Corvara, led by chef Simone Cantafio, from a straightforward observation: at the end of service, there is always something left. Bread that never reached the table. Carefully prepared vegetables that weren't used. Off-cuts, leftover preparations, ingredients that still have all their value — just not their commercial value.
Instead of throwing them away, those ingredients find a second life.
With the involvement of Foundation collaborators and the kitchens of Hotel La Perla — led by chef Riccardo Forzan — the recovered ingredients become considered dishes: pressed and roasted canederli, bread and escarole soup with curry crumble, rye bread tiramisù, vegetable couscous, stew with roast potatoes. Everything cooked with the same technique and the same care as a dish on the menu.
Over the course of 2026, four times, those dishes left the kitchens and reached people going through difficult moments — through Casa Pacinotti and the Cacciatori di Briciole project of Associazione Volontarius ODV.
Over 400 meals donated.
Families with children. Unaccompanied foreign minors. People without a home.
Volontarius wrote something worth reading: "A hot meal, of quality, prepared with care and competence, meant much more than food aid. It was a gesture of attention and closeness."
Simone Cantafio says something that has stayed with us since we began this project: for him, waste doesn't exist. There is only something that hasn't been listened to carefully enough yet.
It sounds like a sentence about ingredients. It's really about everything.
About how we look at things. About how much attention we're willing to give to what we normally don't see. About how much value there still is in what we're used to discarding — in the kitchen, and not only in the kitchen.
Summer is over. The kitchens are firing up again for the winter season.
And the Cooking Class (No Waste) restarts with them.
If you'd like to follow the project — or support it — you'll find it here.
Have a good autumn.
Fabio Bertocchi
