More than 42,000 meals weighing at least 300 tonnes have been donated to underprivileged families, individuals and expatriates across Bahrain since the beginning of this year, it has emerged.
The humanitarian initiative is being organised by the Conserving Bounties Society, which operates the Bahrain Food Bank (BFB).
It collects surplus food from restaurants, hotels, supermarkets and kind-hearted individuals and ensures the products are safe for consumption. Volunteers and staff then package the food and distribute it to needy people across the island.
The top three hotels that have contributed food this year include The Ritz-Carlton Bahrain (20,798 meals), Gulf Hotel Bahrain (8,830) and Vida Beach Resort Marassi Al Bahrain (1,984).
Some of the other contributors include Downtown Rotana (876 meals), InterContinental Bahrain (1,386), Four Seasons Hotel Bahrain Bay (225), Hilton Bahrain (546), Movenpick Bahrain (718) and Dragon Beach Hotel (792).
“Our aim is to help underprivileged people, and encourage individuals and families to waste less food in the kingdom,” the society’s chief executive Ahmed Al Kuwaiti told the GDN.
“Bahrain is known to have a huge food wastage problem, and there are several factors that contribute to this, including cultural practices, over-purchasing and the lack of awareness of how food wastage impacts the environment.
“Many households here buy more food than is necessary during their weekly shopping, which eventually gets spoiled and is discarded,” he added.
A UN report earlier revealed that Bahrainis waste the most food among Arabs, at an average of 132kg per capita.
In addition, the Conserving Bounties Society’s website claims that more than 400,000kg of food is wasted every day in Bahrain. This number increases to 600,000kg per day during Ramadan.
Annually, 146,000 tonnes of food is wasted every year, worth about BD95 million.
Globally, around 931m tonnes of food is dumped in landfills, 64 per cent of which comes from households.
Mr Al Kuwaiti believes that awareness campaigns are vital to encourage more people to do their part in reducing wastage.
“People need to understand why wasting food is bad, so we hold a variety of campaigns for children and adults, in partnership with both private and government companies,” he said.
“We also place advertisements across the kingdom to remind people not to discard food. By working with the community as well as other organisations, we are able to reach more people, which is important.
“Again, many families contribute to these numbers through over-purchasing, so it’s important to reach as many people as possible through our initiatives,” he added.
So far, the society has helped around 10,000 individuals, 1,800 families and 5,000 expatriates and they intend to reach out to more needy people.
Last year, the group delivered more than 357,251 meals, preventing the wastage of 232,756kg of food.
In monetary terms, this means they avoided wastage of food worth BD3m.
The Conserving Bounties Society, launched in 2014, is the first specialised food bank in the kingdom and advocates reducing food waste while supporting vulnerable communities through donations.
It is licensed by the Social Development Ministry.
The organisation is accepting donations at IBAN BH95-ABIB-0101-0214-1390-01. For more details, call 33499499.
julia@gdnmedia.bh
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