May the 6th, 2021 - Croatian enterprises donated a record amount of food during the most difficult global situations since the Second World War - the ongoing coronavirus pandemic - which has left deep scars on the economies around the world.
As Poslovni Dnevnik/Marta Duic writes, as part of the preparations for the awarding of the "Best Donor" (Najdonator) award to Croatian enterprises that reported the most donated food products, data on the total number of registered donations throughout pandemic-dominated 2020 were published.
According to the data released by the Tax Administration, the total purchase value of donated food without VAT in 2020 amounted to a massive 19,278,809 kuna. This is an increase of one third compared to pre-pandemic 2019, when 12,991,467 kuna of donations in the form of food were reported. The sales value of donations amounted to 29,004,125 kuna, which is significantly more than the 19,836,745 kuna donated back in 2019. A total of 85 Croatian enterprises reported their food donations to the Tax Administration.
"The earthquakes in Zagreb and Central Croatia and the coronavirus pandemic caused enormous damage to Croatia, but it gave both people and companies a chance to show how much they care about each other when things are difficult. Convoys of aid trucks pouring into the affected areas can also be seen in this donation data. Thanks again to everyone, food donation in Croatia is growing from year to year, but we haven't ever experienced such a jump so far. It should be borne in mind that the earthquake hit Central Croatia back at the very end of 2020, so we expect a big increase for the current year,'' stated Biljana Borzan, the vice president of the Eurosocialists and organiser of the Croatian Najdonator award.
It's worth mentioning that Borzan and the Food Network launched the Najdonator initiative back in 2018 in order to give the proper and deserved recognition to the largest food donors among Croatian enterprises. Previous winners of the annual award were Konzum and Dukat among large companies, and Sana delicacies among small and medium-sized companies.
The fourth time of the awarding of the Najdonator award is planned for the autumn of 2021, depending on the epidemiological circumstances. The organisers will contact all donors who have reported their respective donations to the Tax Administration, to determine which Croatian enterprises contributed the most to the large increase in donations last year.
“It seems that we need an earthquake or some natural disaster to understand that there are people in need, but it's great that companies have stepped up and donated more, primarily because of the earthquake. There's been a significant increase. It's also necessary to be aware that there are those "invisible" people in need around us, who are looking for food every day and mostly depend on donations from producers and retail chains, those whose need is not published in the media. I sincerely hope that this practice of donating, which has been significantly better than it was back during previous years, will continue. With this, we really want to encourage donors to continuously donate surplus food that they have on a daily basis,'' said Zoran Grozdanov, the coordinator of the Food Network.
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