Heroes of change contest 2025: let’s learn about all shortlisted projects!
America
|America

On June 16th, we announced the two winners of the Heroes of change contest. While their projects took the first place, other projects in the 2025 edition were also ambitious and of high quality. Of the 32 applications submitted, 10 were selected for oral presentation to the jury.
10 pre-selected projects divided into 2 leagues!
Once again this year, the successful candidates were classified into two distinct leagues:
- “CSR Revelations” League : dedicated to precise and/or incipient actions.
- “CSR Champions” League : rewarding cross-disciplinary and durable actions linking several pillars of the Newrest CSR charter.
CSR Revelations League:
- Newrest Peru – “Health on the plate“:
Health on the plate is a project aimed at sustainably improving the health of vulnerable populations in the Moquegua region, by strengthening the production capacities of community canteens through training in healthy and sustainable food.
The training program is structured around four modules:
– food handling,
– nutrition
– financial management,
– customer service,
193 members from 32 community canteens were trained. The project combined theory and practice, incorporating accompanying visits, gastronomic competitions and a reward system to encourage the application of good practices.
- Newrest Denmark– “Banana Rescue“:
These desserts replaced options previously packaged in single-use plastic in economy class meal trays.
Deployed in Scandinavian units (Stockholm, Copenhagen and Oslo), this initiative considerably reduces the amount of plastic packaging (almost 100,000 plastic packages per month) and participates into the fight against food waste (4.2 tons of bananas saved to this date).
- Newrest Morocco – “Catering training“:
- Newrest Uganda – “Hands for hope“:
Faced with a lack of access to drinking water, food, education and healthcare, Newrest Uganda decided to support the design and construction of a classroom meeting the specific needs of the children concerned.
This initiative will enable these young people to benefit from access to education, balanced meals and appropriate clothing, thus contributing to a long-term improvement in their daily lives.
CSR Champions:
- Newrest France – “Fresh food recycling“:
The aim is clear: to return these products to the sales system as quickly as possible, in order to maximize their consumption and limit their disposal.
This initiative involved a targeted reorganization of the production teams, including the pooling of two key positions and specific training for the employees concerned. Since its deployment in mid-January 2025, the results have been convincing: the rate of products discarded because they have exceeded their best-before date has been almost halved.
- Newrest Colombia – “Ready-to-eat food products“:
To this end, a factory has been set up in the Cesar area, in the heart of the mining area, to transform local agricultural products – such as yuca and ahuyama – into ready-to-eat food products. These products are designed to meet the expectations of urban families and institutions looking for practical solutions, without compromising on nutritional quality.
Today, the plant generates income for women heads of the family and contributes to boosting the regional economy by developing under-exploited agricultural resources until then.
- Newrest Chile – “Autonomous solar-powered water point“:
- Newrest Mexico – “The taste of experience“:
These projects give concrete expression to our ambition in terms of social responsibility, and are a real source of inspiration for all our teams.