Iberdrola, through the Fundación Iberdrola España and as part of its commitment to mitigate the consequences of the Covid-19 crisis, has launched an initiative to prepare 113,000 solidarity menus – 1,000 each day for 113 consecutive days – which will be aimed at people without resources in Madrid and Bizkaia.

In the first quarter of this year, the coronavirus crisis left the highest number of people registered as unemployed since 2013, reaching 1.1 million families without resources in Spain (according to the data from the Labour Force Survey, EPA, known at the end of April). This situation has tripled the demand for food in soup kitchens and parishes that already served families at risk of social exclusion and poverty.

These menus, which will require a total of around 600,000 euros, will be distributed by the Iberdrola España Foundation and are being prepared by regular Iberdrola chefs, hired by the supplier Sodexo, who work in the company’s kitchens in the Larraskitu complex (Bizkaia) and on the campus for training and innovation in the town of San Agustín del Guadalix.

Cooks working in the company’s kitchens in the San Agustín del Guadalix campus for training and innovation.

All these canteens had to stop their activity due to the coronavirus crisis, so this solidarity initiative has also enabled the incorporation of 16 employees from the catering services company who had been included in an ERTE. As it does for Iberdrola, Sodexo will provide advice from its team of nutritionists to ensure that the menus are varied and healthy.

The company plans to deliver 300 daily menus to Cáritas Bizkaia and 700 to the San Ramón Nonato Parish in Puente de Vallecas (Madrid), which coordinates five canteens, although the number of menus prepared for each territory will be adjusted according to the specific needs detected.