Zero Hunger: details are being adjusted for the first Business Roundtable that will be held this Tuesday 23rd in San Lorenzo

Asunción, IP Agency.- The first edition of the comprehensive business roundtable, which seeks to facilitate micro, small and medium-sized companies, as well as family agriculture producers, to be suppliers of the companies awarded the “Zero Hunger in Schools” program, will be held this Tuesday 23, at the Entrepreneur Training Center, located in the city of San Lorenzo, Central, between 08:30 and 16:00.

In this first round of business, the bidders who will be in charge of school meals in Asunción, Central and Pdte. Hayes, whose management is in charge of the Ministry of Social Development, are involved.

The activity is part of the strategy approved by the National Council for School Feeding (CONAE), which will ensure the provision of inputs for breakfast, snack and school lunch services of the School Feeding Program, through the production of fresh and high-quality products, simultaneously generating the involvement of local labor in the areas of family agriculture and micro, small and medium-sized enterprises.

In this context and to finalize the details for Tuesday’s event, the Vice Minister of Social Policies, Carlos Paris, and the Vice Minister of Administration and Finance, Raúl Ramírez, of the Ministry of Social Development, participated last Friday in the information meeting with companies awarded the Zero Hunger Program, which was organized by the Ministry of Industry and Commerce (MIC).

The aim of the business roundtable is to foster medium- and long-term business relationships between agricultural producers and micro-entrepreneurs with larger companies and to strengthen the local value chain through this interaction.

The Zero Hunger in Schools program establishes that companies awarded the contract to provide school meals must demonstrate that 10% of their products come from family farming and 5% from MSMEs.

The National School Feeding Council, which coordinates the implementation of the program, identified 90,000 micro, small and medium-sized companies eligible to participate in “Zero Hunger.”

In economic terms, it is estimated that the program could generate a purchasing potential of USD 20 million for these sectors this year, with a long-term goal of reaching USD 100 million by 2027.

The business roundtable is jointly organized by the Ministry of Social Development, the Ministry of Industry and Commerce and the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock.