PFA finalises draft regulation to curtail food wastage

According to an estimate, around 36 million tons of food goes to waste in Pakistan every year

LAHORE: The Punjab Food Authority (PFA) has finalised draft regulation to curtail wastage of leftover food of hotels, restaurants, and banquets.

In the light of Lahore High Court (LHC) direction, the authority held a meeting on PFA Disposal of Excess Food Regulation 2019 on Saturday. Members of the commission formed by LHC, representative of the hotel and restaurants and other senior officials attended the meeting.

The participants deliberated on various proposals for better and efficient use of leftover food, which was generally wasted due to the absence of requisite regulations and food collection, handling, and distribution systems.

A spokesperson of the authority told The Express Tribune that though the provincial food watchdog had prepared regulation draft a round of final deliberation would be held at provincial food secretary's office on Monday.

Some estimates indicate that around 36 million tons of food go to waste in Pakistan every year, while 43% of the country's population is food insecure. According to the latest edition of the Global Hunger Index 2018, Pakistan is ranked at 106th place out of a total of 119 countries. Though data shows, the country has slightly improved its ranking since 2000 but still, it is ranked among the list of countries having ‘serious' hunger level, like India, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Myanmar, etc.

Data highlights that over one-fifth of the country's population is undernourished (whose caloric intake is insufficient); one-tenth of the children under five years of age are underweight; 45% of children under five have stunted growth (who have low height for their age, reflecting chronic under-nutrition); and 7.9% of children under five die due to the fatal mix of inadequate nutrition and unhealthy environment.

Statistics show that the quantum of food that goes waste in post-harvest, processing, distribution, and consumption is almost equivalent to the needs of the entire population of Lahore, Karachi, and Islamabad. Some statistics highlight that hundreds of kilogrammes food is wasted by hotels and restaurants every day.

In recent year, some students and social entrepreneurs have tried to bridge the gap between food waste and hunger by developing food collection, handling and distribution networks in different cities of the country. Rizq is an example of such startups that is established by a group of LUMS students to feed the underprivileged and malnourished by collecting food that would normally go to waste and delivering it to those who could not afford a meal.

Rizq Co-Founder and CEO, Qasim Javaid, told The Express Tribune that initially, they started this initiative from Lahore but now it had a full fledge food bank in Islamabad, besides a food bank and three ration centers in Lahore. They have recently been selected as the top 19 social enterprises of South Asia by Spring accelerator, a programme funded by USAID, Nike Foundation and DFID, besides several other local and international awards.

The social enterprise has served over 1.5 million meals and distributed over 20,000 school lunches. It has also distributed over 4,500 daigs and 3,500 rations packages. It all started with the creation of a Facebook page that grabbed the attention of over 2,000 people overnight.