Food waste solutions Paswan should have heard about

Social media has had a field day this week what with Food and Consumer Affairs Minister Ram Vilas Paswan suggesting that restaurants and eating joints must specify on the menu the amount of food they serve per portion.

As always, the sudden interest in food wastage was inspired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s comments against food wastage in his Mann ki Baat sermon on April 9. But, Paswan should have realised this is not a new problem and solutions lie in experiments around the country, including in Delhi.

In Kerala, for instance, there are two such initiatives—Operation Suleimani and Nanma Maram (The giving tree). In Delhi, we have The Robin Hood Army and there is the Coimbatore-based No Food Waste.

Operation Suleimani, which was initiated by the earlier Kozhikode District Collector, Prashant Nair, has been envisaged as community-driven programme. They neither encourage large donations, nor allow government funding for the project. The project aims to provide food with dignity to those who do not have access to meals. No questions are asked.

Once the Collector’s office initiated it, Kerala State Hotel and Restaurants Association roped in over 125 restaurants in Kozhikode to become a part of this. The volunteer team has placed boxes around the city into which unnamed donations are made. The District Administration provides food coupons which can be redeemed to have food at hotels who are registered members of 'Operation Sulaimani'. These coupons are made available at many distribution centres, including the Collectorate and Taluk offices. Those in need can collect these coupons and approach any hotel which is a part of the initiative.

“It has been almost two-and-a-half years since the project began. On any day, at least 250 coupons are utilised. Until now we haven’t faced a paucity of funds, after all it is a community-feeds-community programme. It was envisioned as a ‘food with dignity’ programme,” says UV Jose, the current Kozhikode Collector. The money collected from these boxes is then used to pay the restaurants for the meals they serve.

The officials intend to add another six coupon collection points, including the Railway Station. The officials, however, worry that they are not reaching all the right beneficiaries.

In the case of Nanma Maram, which is a privately-run initiative, Minu Pauline installed a public fridge outside her eating joint, Pappadavada. She ensures that her restaurant gives at least 50 packets every day. She has been urging local resident to donate excess food to the refrigerator.

“We began this initiative a year ago. Most of the time, there are food packets in the refrigerator, but there have been instances when it has been empty too. Three months ago, we went through a lull, when no one seemed willing to share their excess food. But, now the situation has changed. The public has been cooperating,” says Pauline.

The refrigerator functions at all hours and people can drop off food at any point. “We only insist that the food should not be stale and that the date of preparation should be mentioned on the packets,” adds Pauline.

The Robin Hood Army, started by Neel Ghose and Anand Sinha, works with restaurants to get surplus food, which is then distributed to the homeless and the hungry in the locality. They work in 41 cities around the country and in Pakistan.

Modelled on the Lisbon-based Re-Food Program, which looks to reduce food waste, The Robin Hood Army works on a decentralised model where young responsible adults oversee the local programme. They approach restaurants to convince them to donate the surplus food and then clusters of people in need are identified. They usually work on weekends and the programme is run by volunteers, who are working on other days.

They claim to have fed more than 18,48,210 people in 41 cities. Their idea is to create local sustainable chapters which will cater to the local community.

No Food Waste serves an average of 200 people daily in the eight cities they are a part of, which are Coimbatore, Chennai, Salem, Pollachi, Erode, Delhi, Tadepalligudem and Ahmedabad. The brainchild of Coimbatore-based Padmanabhan and his friends, Sudhakar and Dinesh, the organisation collects excess food from parties and weddings, to redistribute it to those in need. If the leftover food will serve less than 50 persons, then it should be dropped at the collection point. “They run a volunteer-staffed call centre where one can call to find out about the delivery points and collection timings,” said Siva Sankari, who is a part of the call centre.

In all the eight cities, they are supported by the state government and the urban local bodies, which help in transporting, storing and distributing the food.

With such initiatives around the country, our food minister need only open his eyes and ears to hear about them and work towards strengthening them.