DUBAI – With World Food Day taking place at Expo 2020, the Australia Pavilion hosted a special panel to discuss food waste, with guest speakers from a variety of backgrounds and some surprisingly innovative solutions.
Participants in ‘Stop the Waste’ included Caterina Galluzzi, Deputy Director of the United Nations World Food Programme for GCC; Dena Assaf, UN Resident Coordinator in the UAE; Moez El Shohdi, President and CEO of Food Banking Regional Network and President for Middle East and Africa of Style Hotels International; Michelin-starred Italian chef Roberto Rispoli; New York-based Australian chef Janine Booth; and vegan, zero-waste chef Maya Badran.
Dena Assaf said: “One third of food produced globally is wasted, while every day around 800 people go hungry at night. Expo 2020 is the first of its kind to discuss sustainability issues.”
She said the UAE has been a key partner for many years, demonstrating its commitment to sustainable development, with Expo 2020 highlighting the country’s “unwavering commitment”.
Moez El Shohdi, a seasoned hotelier in the industry for more than 40 years, revealed his own idea on cutting down on food waste, turning leftovers into animal feed. He said: “Food waste in the hotel industry is a problem, so I had the idea of finding another use for it. By using leftover food as animal feed, the costs are 40 per cent less compared to the regular feeds on the market, and arguably the quality is much better.”
He also revealed some of the ideas introduced by the Food Banking Regional Network, who successfully lobbied Egypt’s Ministry of Tourism to convince hotels to reduce their plate sizes – encouraging customers to take less food from a buffet, for example. A simple move that has reportedly led to a 25 per cent reduction in the surplus food collected from hotels.
The three chefs were also happy to add to the discussion. Janine Booth, who operates branches of her restaurant Root & Bone in Miami and New York with partner Jeff McInnis, and has appeared on American TV shows ‘Top Chef’ and ‘Last Chance Kitchen’, prepared a lamb curry sausage roll made with leftover food. She said: “It’s terrible that we waste so much food. If we can recycle and reuse our kitchen leftovers, we can help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, as agriculture is a huge contributor to this.”
Roberto Rispoli, who won his Michelin star at Il Carpaccio in the Le Royal Monceau, Raffles Paris hotel, and now oversees Shimmers at the Jumeirah Mina A’Salam hotel in Dubai, said: “At my restaurant in Dubai, we try to get most of our items locally, because for the planet getting from further away is no good.”
Maya Badran, a certified Raw Vegan Chef, who teaches workshops in Dubai, said: “I’m trying to educate people to recycle and repurpose. You can even save the seeds from your food to use in your garden, turn into compost, or if it’s suitable use as animal feed for your pet.”