Pedalling the way to cleaner food – Sustainable Food Trust – Sustainable Food Trust.
Anybody who has witnessed the spectacle of a seven-tonne lorry reversing over a canal bridge in Amsterdam will applaud fresh innovation in the city’s delivery systems. These narrow 17th-century bridges and streets are no home for huge vehicles, which often look alarmingly close to toppling into the water as their stressed driver painstakingly inches along, attempting not to hit the cyclists overtaking on all sides.
Fortunately, a solution has materialised. An inventive alternative for the transportation of local food has taken shape in the form ofFoodlogica. Rather than a grand attempt to reconcile the city’s needs with its ancient infrastructure, Foodlogica is a clever solution to a very real paradox: sustainable food is not sustainably transported. Founder and local food champion, Francesca Miazzo, has set out to rectify the faulty link in an otherwise ethical food system used by many Amsterdammers – a system in which the journey between conscious consumer and sustainable producer is made by gas guzzling vehicles that exacerbate pollution and congestion. As well as the obvious environmental ramifications, this kind of food transportation is a blot on the landscape of a city that is, in general, a joy to travel around in.
After extensive research, e-trikes were identified as a potential solution to this sustainability paradox. What are e-trikes you ask? Electronic tricycles of course! In keeping with the Dutch traditions of cycling and pragmatism, an off-the-grid, solar-powered, cargo e-trikes logistical delivery service has been born. Simply put, local produce arrives at Foodlogica’s transport hubs – solar-powered shipping containers – before being loaded onto e-trikes and pedalled to a client, whether a café, shop, restaurant or catering service. The system is designed to clean up, speed up and freshen up the last few miles of the local food system, and is reliant only on human and solar energy.
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