In an Argentina with more than half of its population below the poverty line, the National University of Quilmes (UNQ) resumed the production of ‘Supersopa’, a low-cost and nutrient-rich food that it had created during the country’s last major economic crisis in 2002.

The ‘Supersoup’ is produced by UNQ students on a university floor, it is designed to complement restrictive diets and provide essential nutrients and is delivered in cans of about four liters.

“In a dining room, where people eat once a day, a food that provides vegetables and meat makes a difference compared to a plate of noodles,” Anahí Cuellas, a master in Food Science and Technology, teacher and director of the plant, explains to EFE.

“This prevents the gap between those of us who can eat meat and those of us from widening even more. Children who cannot eat protein have poor cognitive development and learning problems,” he adds.

The ‘Supersoup’ was created by the university in 2002 as a response to the serious economic and social crisis that the country went through, which came to have 57.5% of poor people, according to official data from that time.

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Since that moment, about 250,000 cans have been produced, which are estimated to contain about 10 million rations of nutritious food.

“The university takes responsibility for creating a program from the social food processing plant, where a nutritionally balanced low-cost sustenance is manufactured, which is intended for the most vulnerable,” says Cuellas, while meters away a team of more than a dozen students constantly packs liters and liters of soup in cans that will then be distributed to popular canteens in different parts of the country.

Still far from the severity of the crisis at the beginning of the century, according to the latest data released by the National Institute of Statistics and Census (Indec), Argentina closed the first half of 2024 with 52.9% poverty, while poverty climbed to 18.1%.

In parallel, Javier Milei undertook since his arrival to the Presidency at the end of 2023 an unprecedented reduction of the State and an offensive against social organizations and soup kitchens, which the Government considers to be a focus of corruption.

Faced with this situation, the UNQ put its plant, reserved for student internships twice a year, to produce about 300 cans a week.

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The production process begins with the selection of semi-cooked vegetables, which are then subjected to a heat treatment that eliminates the need for preservatives and allows the cans to be stored without refrigeration.

Each can of ‘Supersopa’ costs 40,000 pesos (about 40 dollars), contains about 50 servings of a food without additives and subjected to strict microbiological controls.

Individuals, companies, foundations and even state institutions can buy the product or access it through programs sponsored by different donors, which facilitate production costs and their subsequent distribution to canteens.

“From the symbolic, producing soup cans in a public university and reaching the canteens makes visible the commitment of our universities to the territory,” says Cuellas, in a context in which the Government of Milei has also focused on public universities, which say they are drowned by the lack of budget.

The Cuellas team is composed of a group of students from different careers related to food, who also seek to train on a professional and personal level: “It is to put learning into practice and add social content, making a food for a boy or girl who goes to bed daily without eating.”

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