Marcelo Sous

Food Matters

Meet Marcelo Sous, the 29 year old founder of Redalco, a non-profit in Uruguay that has recovered over 3,300,000 kilograms of food waste to provide healthy meals for food-scarce communities.

Marcelo was born in Montevideo, where he became involved in community service during his teenage years as part of a youth group. The experience opened the young Marcelo’s eyes to the impact he could have on the world and eventually led him into a development degree to learn how to create his own social initiatives.

In 2016 he launched a small hummus and falafel delivery business to earn extra cash while studying. On the first day of his new venture, he went to the city’s wholesale Mercado Markets to pick up a cheap drawer of lemons and walked out with an entirely new mission. Shocked by the volume of edible fruit and vegetables thrown into waste containers because they were too 'ugly' to sell, Marcelo rallied some classmates and came up with a plan to put the food to better use.

Marcelo’s team got permission from the market authorities to collect discards from vendors and then reached out to local charities in need of produce donations. Their first attempt recovered 100 kilograms of produce which they distributed between two shelters and a community retirement home. Seeing first-hand the difference that the discarded produce made to the people receiving the food, Marcelo knew he was onto something and launched Redalco, the 'Shared Food Network.'

Inspired by his mission, the markets donated a space on site for Marcelo’s team to collect and distribute the food. In just five years, the organisation has become one of Uruguay’s most important NGOs, distributing produce to over 400 charities who have been able to provide 8,250,000 meals for people who need them the most.

Despite this huge achievement, Marcelo isn’t done yet. He dreams of inspiring similar organisations all over the world to create one global solution that tackles hunger and climate change together.

We are just four friends who just got together to do good in our community. I want everyone to gain enough confidence to promote this kind of initiative.