Huffpost Arabi reported yesterday of an unprecedented amount of food wastage coming from Saudi Arabia. When calculated, the amount of food surplus reaches a whopping 8 million meals daily!
On average each person’s food wastage amounts to around 250kg, of this 35% of this waste consists of baked goods and another 30% of rice.
What makes matters worse is that Saudi families spend over 26% of their incomes on food alone.
Why so much?
Factors such as high rates of population growth, urbanization and economic expansion in the Middle East is accelerating consumption rates. High income Middle Eastern countries such as Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar and Bahrain are some of the world’s largest waste producers in terms of per capita waste generation.
Of all the countries in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia comes out as the worst in total waste production, producing over 15 million tons per annum, with the UAE coming in second with 6 million tons of waste per annum.
Food waste is particularly prominent in the Gulf region, and this is largely as a result of the huge number of hotels, restaurants, fast food producers and cafes. The problem is also worsened by the lack of a proper food waste management strategy.
Saudi citizen Mashal Khrashii has taken the amounting problem into his own hands. Kharashi has designed and created a new plate, which he claims will reduce food waste by 30%. Whilst maintaining the tradition style of a plate, it is elavated in the middle in areas where food is normally left.
(twitter)
The plate is currently being used in 40 restaurants and it's being sold and distributed in all Gulf countries.
SE
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