Zomato and Feeding India are on a mission to collaboratively solve the challenges of malnutrition, hunger and food wastage. They aim to target each source of food wastage in the country i.e. farms, supermarkets, hotels, restaurants, events and corporates. The Zomato network is seeking to plug into the existing models of Feeding India to focus on sustainably feeding people who suffer from hunger.
Feeding India was set up with the aim to end hunger and malnutrition in India by providing food to vulnerable people, who have limited access to nutritious food. They redistribute excess food, that is good and nutritious and would otherwise go to waste, to people in need. They also cook fresh food through innovative kitchen models that supports people, especially women and children. Feeding India has also initiated a #FightFoodWaste movement to create awareness and address the annual wastage of food valued at INR 58,000 crores, which is thrown in landfills and emanates an environmentally harmful methane gas, while millions go hungry at night.
On the other hand, as a food company, Zomato is striving to address each step of the food value chain, to foster transparency and quality. Zomato actively engages in pro-environment messaging to encourage use of biodegradable packaging. Within six months of its launch, Zomato Piggybank, its reward points program, has raised funds equivalent to 22 lakh meals.
In highlighting this joint initiative, the Founder and CEO of Zomato, Deepinder Goyal said, “we have so far, taken environmental issues head-on with non-plastic initiatives like preventing the consumption of single-use plastic cutlery and promoting biodegradable packaging for food delivery. As we welcome Feeding India into the Zomato family, we will take this battle a notch higher by helping them build a system where excess food is directed to those in need. As a start, we aim to activate the restaurants on our platform into the Feeding India network and help them use technology to scale their volunteer operations. Feeding India will become a core part of our DNA and a significant step in our mission to ensure ‘better food for more people’. My many conversations with Ankit and Srishti have convinced me of our belief in a shared mission, and I am confident that together we will make a positive impact on food wastage and hunger.”
According to Ankit Kawatra, the Founder of Feeding India, “our ambitious aim is to end hunger and food wastage not just in India, but globally. I’m delighted to strengthen this movement with Zomato, given its vision of ‘better food for more people’ and our shared mission to combat hunger and food wastage. We see this collaboration as a pivotal step against food insecurity. I believe that restaurants can play a transformational role in powering hunger-free cities, and I look forward to working with the Zomato network in the future.”
The EAT-Lancet report that calls for a Great Food Transformation in order to create healthy diets from sustainable food systems, emphasises upon the crucial need to massively reduce the global volume of food loss and waste. Such multi-sectoral collaborations are critical for resolving complex challenges of malnutrition in the country and achieving development goals, underlining Zero Hunger. Of course, it remains to be seen how successful this initiative is in translating its vision into reality and resolving the seemingly contradictory existence of massive levels of hunger and wastage of food.
India Outbound
February 7, 2019
source https://indiaoutbound.org/joint-partnership-to-tackle-the-contradictory-challenge-of-hunger-and-food-waste/
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