REDALCO UY (2019-2020)

A documentary project in collaboration with Liliana Yarian and Carmen Ruiz Costa

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Uruguay wastes 125 million kilos of fruits and vegetables every year. At the same time, more than 250,000 people in the country cannot access regular meals. Between those two numbers — what is left over and what is missing — sits Redalco: an organization that rescues fruits and vegetables discarded for their shape, size, color or because of overproduction, sorts them, and delivers them — at no cost, or at a minimum cost — to neighborhoods and community kitchens where they would otherwise not arrive.

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This work documents that chain.

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We made it together with the photographers Liliana Yarian and Carmen Ruiz Costa, fellow students at IMAGO. The initiative was ours; Redalco opened its doors and accompanied us throughout the process. We decided to follow the full path of the rescued food and to structure the essay around its three stages:

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Collection — the work at the UAM (Montevideo's wholesale food market) and at small farms, where what no longer works for the market still holds all of its nutritional value.

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Sorting — the warehouse where the recovered produce is reviewed, separated by condition, and prepared to become food again.

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Delivery — the final stretch, when those fruits and vegetables reach the hands of the people who, without this logistics, would not have them.

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To photograph Redalco was also to photograph an idea: that waste is not inevitable but a decision, and that between the producer and the plate there is always a distance someone can shorten.

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Documentary project, completed. Montevideo, 2019–2020. In collaboration with Liliana Yarian and Carmen Ruiz Costa.