KUALA LUMPUR: The Food bank Malaysia programme has benefited 45,850 households nationwide as of February this year, says Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail. B
According to Dr Wan Azizah, 1,055 metric tonnes of excess food was saved by the programme since it was launched in August last year.
“As we all know, surplus food becomes rubbish, and we produce tonnes of it (excess food) a day.
“We can distribute this food to others, so we shouldn’t just discard them (excess food) just like that. That’s a form of wastage,” she said.
Dr Wan Azizah said this during her speech at the launch of the Foodbank programme for the Pandan parliamentary constituency at Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan Pandan Mewah on Sunday (March 31).
“For this initiative, the Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Ministry has reached out to food producers, restaurants and hotels, as well as strategic partners of the ministry such as Mutiara Food Bank, Food Aid Foundation, Kechara Soup Kitchen, to assist in handing out assistance to the targeted groups,” she added.
According to the Pandan MP, the Food Bank Malaysia programme in the Pandan parliamentary constituency would be managed by its main strategic partner Kechara Soup Kitchen with the cooperation of a local NGO known as Voice of Pandan.
“These NGOs will collect food from hypermarkets and supermarkets involved in this programme and will distribute it once a week to targeted groups in the Pandan parliamentary constituency.
“For now, there are more than 200 people who have registered for the aid,” she said.
She added that the supermarkets involved in this programme were Tesco, Econsave, The Store, NSK and Segi Supermarket.
Dr Wan Azizah said the Food Bank Malaysia programme was an initiative by the government to reduce the cost of living and to decrease food wastage.
“We want this programme to be continuous. This is not an ad hoc or one-off initiative,” she added.
Meanwhile, Dr Wan Azizah said following a meeting by the National Action Council on the Cost of Living (Naccol) on Feb 15, the government had decided to include higher education institutions nationwide in the programme.
“This is to address the rising cost of living faced by local students… They are the future of our country,” she added.
Also present during the event was Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Minister Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution.
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