Hub di Quartiere — Milan's Neighbourhood Food Waste Recovery Network

Launched in 2019 by the Municipality of Milan together with Fondazione Cariplo, the anti-poverty programme Programma QuBì, business association Assolombarda and Politecnico di Milano, the Hub di Quartiere ('neighbourhood hub') network is part of Milan's Food Policy — one of the first city-wide, cross-sector food-waste strategies in a major city, bringing together public agencies, wholesale markets, supermarkets, food banks, universities and neighbourhood charities under a shared framework.

To recover unsold or surplus food from markets, retailers and producers and redistribute it to households in need, building a formal multi-stakeholder food-recovery infrastructure rather than relying on ad hoc donations.

Each hub is a local collection and redistribution point where surplus food — including from the Sogemi wholesale food market's 'Foody Zero Sprechi' hub — is gathered, sorted and passed to third-sector associations for distribution. The network expanded from an initial handful of sites to eight active hubs by 2024.

Recovery volumes grew every year on record: 615 tonnes in 2023, 795.3 tonnes in 2024 (a 25% increase), and 1,057 tonnes in 2025. In 2024 the network reached 14,973 households (over 126,000 people, including 3,867 minors) through 176 partner associations, generating over 1.59 million meal-equivalents; by 2025 that had grown to roughly two million meals reaching an estimated 18,000 vulnerable families. Independent monitoring is published annually by Politecnico di Milano's School of Management. In 2021 the programme won The Earthshot Prize in the 'Build a Waste-Free World' category, selected from 750 candidate initiatives worldwide.

Milan's model demonstrates that a formal, multi-stakeholder food-recovery infrastructure can scale food redistribution year over year while directly targeting low-income households. Its methodology has been documented by international observers (including the US-based NRDC) as a reference case, though systematic replication data from other cities was not found in public sources.