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Government, NGOs & Businesses

Credit: The New Paper/Kelvin Chng
Credit: The New Paper/Kelvin Chng

In Singapore, the government, NGOs and several businesses have been actively working together since announcement that the amount of food wastage has been steadily increasing over the past few years. Here, we look at some of the actions that each entity has undertaken to curb this problem.

1. The Singapore Government

Credit: Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources
Credit: Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources

The Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources (MEWR) of Singapore is responsible for providing a quality living environment for all who live in Singapore, and aims to achieve long-term environmental sustainability. The National Environment Agency (NEA), a statutory board that is responsible for caring and maintaining Singapore’s clean and green environment, as well as plans and organises environmental programmes that connect the Public, Private, and People sectors, is another key organisation that is involved in addressing any threat’s to Singapore’s environmental sustainability.

As seen from the press release above, both MEWR and NEA are currently working together to tackle the problem of food wastage in Singapore (underlined in red). They have adopted the familiar 3R model – Reduce, Reuse and Recycle –  to manage this problem, and also propose several pilot programmes to identify more cost-effective methods to collect and process food waste. As previously mentioned in the “consumers” section, the government also proposes that the best way to manage the problem of food wastage is to reduce it. Reusing and recycling are also encouraged, especially to Food & Beverage (F&B) establishments, so that food waste at these sources can be minimised.

2. Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs)

Credit: Food From The Heart
Credit: Food from the Heart

NGOs play an important role in directly reaching out to the less fortunate and helping those in need as they are spared the hassle of going through administrative red tape. Food from the Heart (FFTH), a non-profit voluntary organisation, is one such example of an NGO that is doing their part to not only help the needy, but also, prevent unnecessary food wastage.

As addressed in the social impacts of food wastage, it seems ironic that there are people throwing away tonnes of excess food annually on one hand, and people dying from starvation by the minute on the other. Building on this idea, an Austrian couple living in Singapore set up FFTH in 2003 and helped to channel surplus food from bakeries to underprivileged homes. This food distribution programme successfully alleviated hunger in many homes in Singapore, as show in the infographic taken from FFTH’s 2014 anual report, below.

Credit: Food from the Heart
Credit: Food from the Heart

This example shows that NGOs can be extremely beneficial and act as intermediaries that deliver excess food from businesses to the needy, which thus reduces the amount of food that go to waste. If you want to be a part of FFTH’s movement, visit https://foodheart.org/tour/signup.

3. Businesses

Credit: Sunshine Kelly
Credit: Sunshine Kelly

Businesses, especially those in the F&B Industry, often create high wastage at the end of a working day as leftover food cannot be served the next day and gets thrown out. However, there are companies that recognise the severity and problems associated with food wastage, and have begun to take action to reduce food waste. One such company is Sakae Holdings, owner of the sushi branch Hei Sushi, which has actively changed food preparation and disposal methods to maximise edible food products and ensure that little food go to waste.

According to a report by Channel NewsAsia on the practice at Hei Sushi, “bits of the salmon that do not make the cut for sashimi are used in the salad or as topping for the Guankan sushi dish. Salmon skin is deep fried and pounded into pieces for salmon skin sushi. Fish bones are used as soup stock, and Sakae Holdings has been piloting a treatment plant on its own premises, to convert excess fish bones and other food waste into animal feed.” From this example, we can see that profit is not necessarily made at the expense of food wastage; on the contrary, redirecting other part of a food product to create other innovative dishes may actually increase profit for the company as there is no additional cost incurred in the purchase of raw food items. Hence, if all F&B businesses can commit themselves to saving food and reducing wastage, the total amount of food waste produced can be significantly reduced.

 

 

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