Image used for representation only.
Doha, Qatar: Young people must be educated and sensitised on conservation and food management practices to prevent wastefulness and encourage responsibility to tackle food waste in the region, Chef Leyla Fathallah has said.
One of the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals is to halve global food waste and reduce food losses in production and supply by 2030.
According to the UN estimates, one-third of all human-caused greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) come from the global food system, covering unsustainable food production, packaging and consumption.
Speaking to The Peninsula on the sidelines of the Earth Talk Series hosted by Arab Youth Climate Change Movement Qatar (AYCMQ), Fathallah, who is the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Advocate on Food Waste for West Asia, said, “What we have to do is educate our children, young people, teenagers on how to reduce from shopping to throwing food or ordering more food than they can consume.
Chef Leyla Fathallah (right) and AYCMQ’s Abdulrahman Al Muftah during the Earth Talk Series.
On the other hand, we need to show them what they will do with excess food, like sharing with their friends, family with regular people who may not have the same luxury.”
Over 780 million people experience hunger, almost one-third of all food produced globally is lost or wasted, and nearly three billion people cannot afford healthy diets.
Regionally, FAO also estimates that the Near East and North Africa waste an average of 250 kg of food per capita yearly, culminating in the wastage of up to 30% of its water and energy due to lost or wasted food.
Food waste leads to harmful environmental impacts, primarily food and water scarcity, crop failures, increased greenhouse gas emissions, soil degradation, and low profits for farmers.
Chef Fathallah believes that in the Arab region, the major problem remains over production or cooking, especially from the older generation. She stressed that this makes educating young people more apparent.
“They are the future, and the more we educate them, give them tips on reducing their food consumption and waste, the more we have a better future, hopefully, for the planet,” she emphasised.
During Ramadan this year, UNEP launched the Sustainable Ramadan campaign to raise food waste awareness and spur behavioural change.
Chef Fathallah told The Peninsula that the initiative in Qatar, Saudi Arabia (Riyadh) and the UAE (Dubai), in partnership with Hilton Hotels, saw a 60% decrease in food waste during Ramadan in the hotels. While the region’s Food and Beverage (F&B) industry continues to implement measures to curb food waste, with many adopting sustainable practices like avoiding overstocking and storing food properly, Chef Fathallah added that the hotel industry and F&B face a tough challenge in food management and called on the government to partner in distributing the remaining food from these hotels.
Globally, the food services industry accounts for 26% of food waste. Chef Fathallah called on the government to support restaurants and hotels by providing cooled vans to transfer this food to needy people, associations and orphanages.
“So I think we should be working more on a smaller and larger scale, but we should be working more,” she added.
Meanwhile, during the Earth Talk Series, Chef Fathallah discussed stopping food waste and preserving the planet. Co-Executive Director at AYCMQ, Abdulrahman Al Muftah, said that the organisation hopes to create more awareness towards food waste.
“I think this comes very timely given that a food waste issue in the region is growing. Numbers are staggering for the Middle East and GCC. This brings a lot of awareness, and having an eminent person like Chef Leyla, we are trying to build community awareness. This is how we want to build. What AYCM does is a bottom-up approach from community to policymaking.”
