Forward wasted food to the needy ones in Dubai

Ramadan is a time giving to those who are less fortunate than us and Dubai has always opened up their arms to those in need. Sadly, though, the holy month of Ramadan also highlights the amount of food that goes to waste.
A charity initiative called Food Forward, founded by a Dubai resident in October last year, connects with restaurants to get their leftovers and donates them to labour camps and workers, where there is a need for food.
Statistics show that during Ramadan food wastage increases. On regular days, food makes up 33 to 38 per cent of domestic waste, but during Ramadan, it can go up to 55 per cent or more. In the UAE, an average of 350kg of food is wasted per resident annually.
Anar Ebrahim, a 38-year-old Canadian mother of two, who has lived in Dubai for the past 8 years and runs her own charity fridge throughout the year and not just during the month of Ramadan, is the pioneer behind the Food Forward initiative in Dubai.
This initiative, however, is still a work-in-progress.
"Right now, this is just a small scale, one person initiative. But to bring this movement to a much larger scale, we would have to be a registered charity. We are willing to invest in a refrigerated truck and hire someone to check the food we receive to see if its consumable," she told Khaleej Times.
"As UAE laws are very stringent on restaurants giving food away to keep quality control in check, it makes things difficult for organistaions to partner with us but this is changing.
"France changed its laws to make it impossible for food retailers to throw food away and with the UAE being such a forward thinking country, we hope this can be implemented here."
"We have a fridge outside our home since October 2015, and are currently in conversation with food retailers to come on board to create a sustainable supply of food for the ones in need. There are three food establishments on board with Food Forward as of now and we hope to spread this into a national programme."
How it works now is, Anar gets in touch with food establishments who donate food and she stocks up her fridge outside her home in the Palm, from where workers can avail of it.
The estimated number of people this initiative has helped so far is in the thousands.
sarakshi@khaleejtimes.com

• Ramadan News
• Dubai