Hotel chains pledge to cut waste and save food
Three major hotel operators have promised to reduce waste and save a million meals by the end of this year.
Emaar, Majid Al Futtaim and Rotana have joined a drive by the Ministry of Climate Change and Environment to reduce the amount of food being thrown away.
Pictures of lavish iftars with glistening fruit, sumptuous meats, trays full of biryani and sweet treats are everywhere on social media in Ramadan.
But this year, the ministry sent a message by hosting an iftar that featured less popular cuts of meat and over-ripe fruits that would usually not make it to the plate.
“I am pleased to reaffirm the UAE’s commitment to meeting the global target to reduce food loss and waste by 50 per cent by 2030,” said Dr Thani Al Zeyoudi, Minister of Climate Change and the Environment.
“I am also pleased to announce that UAE-based hospitality companies are ready to take on the challenge to reduce food waste and are pledging tonight to save one million meals by the end of 2018. This target will be increased to 2 million meals in 2019 and 3 million meals in 2020.”
The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation has said that a third of the food produced in the world every year, 1.3 billion tonnes of it, is lost or wasted.
Food waste costs the UAE economy Dh13 billion a year.
Dr Al Zeyoudi’s iftar was hosted in partnership with Winnow, a company that launched operations in the UAE 12 months ago after taking part in the Dubai Future Accelerators programme.
The company works with large-scale kitchens to help chefs determine how much food is thrown away and help them to pinpoint areas of waste, enabling them to cut costs.
Winnow has more than 70 units in hotels and catering sites across the UAE and, on average, it cuts food waste by half.
“We are really just getting started and we look forward to scaling our impact with our partners as we work towards an ambitious target of saving over 1 million meals a year from the bin,” said Marc Zornes, co-founder of Winnow.