Bella Dentro is an innovative start-up that was the brainchild of two entrepreneurs in Milan – Luca and Camilla: it is noticeably improving the critical approach to the consumption of fruit and vegetables, which forces farmers in Italy to leave around 4% of their total fruit and vegetable harvest in the fields every year: of the 8.7 million tons of produce in 2018 alone, the total amount of such surplus was equal to approximately 1.4 million tons of food that was discarded based on the purely aesthetic criteria imposed by large retailers and completely independent of the actual quality of the crop in terms of taste and nutritional properties. To date, it can count on the support of Foundation Social Venture Giordano Dell’Amore, which has invested €450,000 to support the social and cultural impact of this initiative.
Bella Dentro restores dignity to produce that has been classified as “waste” – produce which may be aesthetically imperfect but is still “beautiful inside” – by promoting an alternative to the traditional supply chain, one that is more ethical and sustainable. In practice, it purchases directly from farmers the fruit and vegetable produce that is of excellent quality but is not usually accepted by cooperatives and large retailers; it subsequently promotes the sale of this produce – to private individuals, companies and restaurants – through events and communication activities that are created ad hoc to raise consumer awareness regarding the naturalness, quality, taste and nutritional properties of such produce.
In order to save more and more fruit and vegetables and overcome the limits imposed by the perishable nature of fresh produce, the start-up has begun creating a line of processed products – still under the Bella Dentro brand – that are made from produce that has been saved.
The goal is to trigger a virtuous circle that connects the choices of consumers to those of the producers, enabling the former to make good value, common-sense purchases, and the latter to get the right price even for the part of their production that is otherwise not valued.