Take Five: “Young people are the leaders of the food systems transformation”
Maryam Aleisa is the founder and Executive Director of Refood, a non-profit company dedicated to reducing and repurposing food waste in Kuwait. What started out as her personal initiative to eliminate food waste, now serves as a solution to the local industry’s waste while providing access to affordable healthy food to large and limited-income families in her country. She discusses the impact of her work and how young people are part of the solution.
What inspired you to work in food waste management?
Although food waste seems to be mainly a food security issue, as more than 2 million people could be fed every day with the amount of food that gets wasted in Kuwait, it has even further economic, social, and environmental implications. For instance, the average daily per capita waste production stands at around 1.55 kg, and more than 50 per cent of this waste comes from organic sources.
Awareness of the economic, humanitarian, and social impact of food waste coupled with inspiration by my mother’s personal initiative of delivering food packages to underprivileged families, gave me the inspiration and motivation to find a local solution to a global issue.
Refood collects excess food and consumer goods from local distributors and suppliers, and then checks, sorts, and arranges it as wholesome family baskets, available as a subscription to qualified families. The range of products in the baskets include a dynamic range of everything you could possibly find in a grocery store, all depending on current market availability through suppliers.
In your opinion, why is it important for young people to be involved in food systems?
The World Economic Forum’s Incentivizing Food Systems Transformation report argues that a transformation of the food sector is required to establish sustainable, nutritious, and healthy food systems. Young people are the leaders of this transformation as we see many new technologies and solutions arise to serve this cause, from apps that save wasted meals at restaurants, to solutions that are putting a limit to the beauty-standards of fresh produce.