THE FOOD RESCUER
How did the group come to being?
Danish Bo H Holmgreen first founded the organisation as SOS, Scholars of Sustenance. He had travelled extensively and visited Thailand many times. During his stays in hotels, he came up with an idea to rescue leftovers from hotel buffets, kitchens and bakeries. So we first targeted five-star hotels. We registered locally last year as Scholars of Sustenance and, five or six months ago, we merged with OzHarvest, a leading food rescue charity from Australia to become ThaiHarvest-SOS.
What’s your role?
I coordinate with our food donors and farmers and make sure that our donated food is edible before we give it away to those in need at, such as Asylum Access Thailand, Ban Rachawadee in Pak Kred, Mercy Centre in Klong Toey and Half Way Home for Women and Men in Rangsit.
What is your opinion on food waste in Thailand?
It’s an issue at pretty much every level, from hotels, markets and farms to street food. Food waste can be leftover from breakfast buffet lines at hotels, vegetables that are disposed of by restaurants at the end of the day, overbaked pastries from bakeries to some produce that farmers discard because they are too sub-standard to be sold. Most businesses simply destroy the leftovers so no one benefits. Some forbid their staff to take unsold food home or simply burn or pour chemical over it.
Thailand’s known as the world’s kitchen. We produce a lot of food yet still there are those in need of good food. We can get something to eat all the time and for cheap. I think that’s why some of us don’t appreciate food as much as we should. We take food for granted. The Pollution Control Department reported that around 64% of trash in Thailand is food waste (in 2016). That’s an alarming figure.
Can you explain what ThaiHarvest-SOS does?
Basically, we work with various partners to combat food waste, from five-star hotels, restaurants, supermarkets, malls and farmers to individuals. And we run three programmes — food rescue, composting and education on food.
For food rescue, we approach hotels and ask whether we can collect the leftovers from their breakfast buffet. If they agree, we bring containers and air-conditioned vans to collect the leftovers. Then we screen it to make sure it’s edible, weigh it, label it and send it to those in need. Tesco Lotus is one of our big supporters, donating leftovers from its 23 branches in Bangkok.
For our compost programme, we provide hotels bins to collect waste such as fruit peel, veggies and egg shells. Then we will bring them to farms in Nonthaburi, Bang Krachao and Chon Buri so the farmers can turn them into fertiliser, according to the local recipe and soil.
We recently launched community fridge programmes at venues where there are a lot of restaurants in one place. We’ve installed the fridges at The COMMONS and River City Bangkok. A community fridge allows all the restaurants to be able to donate their leftovers conveniently.
We have just begun stronger education programmes like NEST (Nice, Easy, Simple Tips) in our beneficiary communities. We also get involved in markets and other public events, like 100km Market, Noise Market and Think.Eat.Save to raise consumer awareness around the issues.
Do you work with individual donors?
We plan to work more with them. I think everyone can be a donor. Say you overstocked on grocery items, you can contact us to donate some of the tinned food you no longer want. If you know that there will be leftovers after a party, you can give us a call in advance so we can collect the excess food. The same goes for conferences or seminars in hotels.
What kind of impact does your group wish to create?
We want to raise awareness on food waste. It’s still unfamiliar to Thailand and people don’t fully grasp its severity. With proper handling of excess food, not only can we feed those in need with something better but we can also minimise the environmental impact caused by food waste too. I want to see a greener Bangkok.
How can people join this movement?
You can volunteer your time and ride with our vans to collect the donated leftovers or work at our events. We also accept money donations through our bank account. Right now we need a lot of tupperware for collecting leftovers as the number of our donors is growing. I’m really glad that more and more people have joined this movement. I also would like to thank our original donors such as Tesco Lotus, Anantara Riverside Bangkok and Avani Riverside, all of which helped kick start this movement. The more food we rescue, the more people we feed.