Here are some global statistics:

66 tonnes of food is thrown away every second.

1.3 billion tonnes of food is wasted every year.

$1 trillion is the cost of food waste and food loss in global economy.

40% of all food goes waste in wealthier countries.

Food waste accounts for nearly 1/3 of all greenhouse gas emissions.

In the global greenhouse emission index of nations, if food waste was notionally considered to be a nation, it would rank third on the list. Just behind the US and China.

A mere glance at the glaring global food wastage statistics is enough to disturb a conscientious individual. Equally wrenching is the statistic that one in nine people goes hungry every day. This number is actually going up due to pandemic-induced economic disturbance.

The food waste has an environmental, economic and social footprint, and affects sustainability in all three of them. Environmentally, it overloads the disposal infrastructure and landfills, causing health hazards. Even worst, it contributes to the climate change trajectory. Economically, it wastes human efforts and energy inputs in first, the food production, then its transportation to the end consumer, and then in waste handling. The value loss can happen at any of the points in the chain. Socially, it’s an issue which handled deftly can lead to eradication of hunger from the planet.

Well-off countries tend to encourage a culture of consumerism and wastage. But when the UAE govt found out that annually 3.5 billion dollar of food or 38% of the daily prepared food value is wasted in UAE , it was identified as a serious issue. Since then it has been tackled from all possible angles. In an all-comprehensive and inclusive effort, a nationwide awareness of the issue was created. Elimination of food waste and encouraging a sustainable circular food economy was propagated through government pronouncements. In 2017, the UAE Food Bank was created to redirect the surplus food to the underprivileged. This entity literally serves as the “Food Rescue” system as it channelizes the excess food available in leading supermarket chains and other business organizations' canteens to those communities which are in need. The simple and swift system is accessible to all UAE residents and the request for collection of excess food can be made online to the Food Bank. With the help of artificial intelligence and digital solutions, the Food Bank has created a data base which predicts the places of likely generation of excess food and the places where it can be put to good use. Not only that, at the Food Bank the collected food undergoes a strict quality check before being stored in temperature controlled cold storages, from where it is dispatched to recipients according to the need.

To further achieve the National Food Security strategy and the UNSDG goal 12.3, in 2022, the UAE government launched Ne’ma, the National Food Loss and Waste initiative (a collaboration of UAE’s Ministry of Climate Change and Environment & the Emirates Foundation) with the aim to manage food surplus and reduce food waste by 50% by the year 2030.

Through the involvement of public and private sector, including food companies, restaurants, philanthropic organizations, delivery operators, the efforts are made to save food from going waste and be transported to the recipients in best quality. Through nationwide awareness campaigns the UAE residents were educated about the need to be prudent in food preparation and waste reduction, particularly during festivals. This resulted in a unique concept of installation of community fridges by residents, where excess food in perfect condition, can be deposited by the residents to be accessed by those needing it. The large hospitality sector in UAE was encouraged to adopt innovative technology and creative ways to upcycle and recycle food. Supermarkets came up with “wonky” vegetables and fruits section, where imperfect-looking produce which is usually thrown away for want of buyers, is available.

Lastly, at the end of food chain, the inedible food and wasted food was converted into oils and fertilizers to be used again. This is an apt example of circular economy where the end result is zero waste. Even composting is being practiced on community and individual scale in UAE. This all works to alleviate the climate change trend.

Now some heartening statistics- Through such programs, in last year alone, more than 908,100 kgs of food was diverted from ending in landfills. It also led to 1.35 million surplus meals being saved and provided to the needy.