Minimising food waste through leftovers campaign

MALAYSIANS really love food, but did you know that we waste around 15,000 tonnes of it daily?

To mark this year’s World Food Day on Oct 16, Mission Foods and celebrity chef Sarah Benjamin have partnered up by launching the “Foldover Your Leftovers” campaign to combat food wastage in the country at restaurant La Juiceria Superfoods Signature, Kuala Lumpur.

The campaign revisits the old saying of “waste not want not” and aims to inspire people with ideas on how to turn leftovers into brand new nutritious meals.

Sarah will lead the campaign by sharing recipes and ideas through social media and a recipe booklet which will be available in stores with purchase of Mission products.

“Mission Foods will be embarking on a mission to create awareness on food waste, reusing leftovers and moving towards a zero-waste lifestyle,” said Mission Foods South Asia brand manager Randall Tan.

“We wanted to show how simple it is to reuse everyday leftovers with our products. In the long run, households will be able to save a lot of money,” Tan said.

Sarah demonstrated three easy dishes by using simple ingredients that can be leftovers of everyday Malaysian meals such as curries, satay and chicken rice with Mission Foods’ wraps, pita and naan.

“It is upsetting to see food thrown away in the rubbish bin because not only would the ingredients go to waste, but the time and effort that someone spent on cooking it would be wasted, too,” she said.

She added that it was all about getting into the habit of coming up with different and creative methods to reuse our leftovers instead of reheating them and worry about losing the flavour of the food.

“People have the misconception that it’s inflexible when you cook with leftovers, but with them, we don’t have to worry too much about the seasoning or putting together new flavours in the ingredients, especially with Asian food.

“We all need to know what we like in our food, and with that, we can get the best out of our leftovers and amp up the dishes,” she said.

Mission Foods will release limited-edition recipe booklets, featuring 12 recipes of meals using leftovers, all produced by Sarah.

The booklet will be given away to shoppers for every two Mission products purchased beginning November.

World Food Day is celebrated globally to commemorate the establishment of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations in 1945. This year’s theme is “Our Actions are our Future” and #ZeroHunger.

According to FAO, we waste around 15,000 tonnes of food daily and 20% of this amount or 3,000 tonnes are untouched leftovers that are still edible – this amount is enough to feed 5.3 million people three meals a day.