Practical information
Description
Timeline
Stakeholders
Strengths and offer
Urban logistics
Positive impacts
Needs
Logistical challenges
Practical information
What?
A neighbourhood social grocery store offering low-cost food products, cooking workshops, associative catering and redistribution activities. It integrates and trains workers who are distant from the labour market.
Who?
The non-profit organisation Les Capucines has been supported by Carrefour Belgium since its creation in 2003. Its customers are Brussels residents facing financial difficulties, 80% of whom live in 1000 Brussels. Access is granted through a partner social service of the grocery store: medical centres, ONE branches, social housing services, general social action services, etc.
Where?
Rue des Capucins 30, 1000 Brussels — Marolles.
When?
Since 2003.
Contact
02 502 02 09 — infos@capucines.be
Resources
www.capucines.be
Description
Les Capucines is a social grocery store rooted in the Marolles. The project does not belong to urban logistics in the sense of a transport operator, but it is highly relevant because it locally organises access to food, the redistribution of goods to other food aid associations, the transformation of products and, occasionally, meal delivery within the neighbourhood.
At the heart of the project is the aim to enable Brussels households facing difficulties to buy quality products at low prices, while developing activities around the shop related to cooking, food transformation and sociability.
Timeline
Since 2003
Presence of the social grocery store in the Marolles.
2022
Launch of Food & Friends, with prepared meals and a delivery service in the neighbourhood.
2023
Development of La Tof Cuisine as a convivial space for meetings and banquets.
Stakeholders
Around 450 families per year shop at the grocery store, coming from the Marolles and from across the Brussels-Capital Region.
Around 80 partner services provide access to the grocery store for the people they support.
Around 20 associations per week benefit from the redistribution of food products.
Strengths and offer
Strong anchoring in the Marolles and a response to food poverty based on choice, within a budget, health and pleasure perspective.
Connection between supply, transformation and access to quality food for all: shop, prepared meals, banquets and workshops.
Neighbourhood effect: a place of sociability, reduced mental load, links between residents and collective projects.
A professional integration dimension recognised by the Region, with more than 20 people supported per year.
Social shop offering food and non-food products at low prices.
Redistribution to around 20 Brussels food aid associations.
Food & Friends project: associative catering, prepared meals, snacks and homemade lunches, transforming unsold goods into local cooking.
Cooking workshops and collective banquets.
Urban logistics
How does it work?
The project combines a social grocery store, supplies of goods to partner associations, local culinary transformation and, for some services, very local distribution within the Marolles. Its logic is not that of a warehouse or a carrier, but of a small neighbourhood food node.
Why is it interesting?
Because it shows that urban logistics is not only about parcels and trucks: it also concerns everyday access to food, the management of unpredictable flows, the considerable needs of Brussels food aid associations — often handled by volunteers using their own vehicles — and the way a neighbourhood absorbs fragile flows with limited means.
Which obstacles does it respond to?
Food insecurity, difficulty accessing quality products, lack of dedicated logistical spaces in the neighbourhood, and the storage and release of fresh and dry products in unpredictable volumes.
Identified nodes / obstacles
Transport; storage; management of waste and unsold goods; processing time; continuity of supply; value for money.
Positive impacts
Environment — moderate but real impact if distribution takes place at a very small scale and if unsold goods are avoided.
Space — fewer heavy flows than in a conventional chain; logistics absorbed within an existing neighbourhood space.
Neighbourhood — a local service that eases everyday life and reduces certain forced trips.
Social relations — very strong impact: relationships of trust, sociability, sense of belonging and local mutual aid.