Fighting food waste

Chen and Tan preparing food packs for a food distribution mission.

Angela Tan and Alvin Chen, a married couple and co-founders of What a Waste (WaW)

Our social enterprise WaW advocates for food sustainability and fights food waste by repackaging and rechannelling unsold food and leftovers to needy communities.

The salvaged and redistributed food are groceries, raw ingredients and meals prepared by both home cooks and restaurants.

On average, we spend more than 12 hours a day salvaging and delivering food that would otherwise be discarded to needy communities.

Among the recipients of the redistributed food are local B40 communities, refugees, Covid-19 frontliners and even our furry friends at Zoo Negara – any recipient that ensures that surplus good and edible food doesn’t go to waste.

Food security wasn’t something we intentionally built upon, but the opportunity presented itself when we realised that surplus food has so much potential in our country.

It was then that our movement gained enormous traction. Door after door was opened for us to serve.

As Malaysians and understanding the local context, we wanted to digitalise the food distribution and rescue process.

So, we reached out to needy communities to help us fight food waste hand in hand.

When we started WaW in 2018, we operated on the basis that whatever food we rescued would immediately be passed on to the nearest available beneficiary. This way, we would not need premises for storage.

In the beginning, it was just the two of us. Now, WaW has more than 80 volunteer “food warriors” around the Klang Valley.

We initially built WaW’s identity in the wedding scene, where organisers would invite us to rescue surplus food from functions. WaW volunteers would then bring their tools and weighing machines, pack the meals and redistribute them all within three hours to ensure freshness.

It really is a race against time. We even have a timekeeper and every volunteer has their own role to play so that the process is carried out efficiently.

So far, we have attended over 200 weddings for food rescue missions.

Since the Covid-19 pandemic happened, our days have really changed. Now, we don’t let our volunteers go out to distribute food, except in emergency situations, to minimise exposure to infection.

On most days, it’s just the two of us deployed on missions with about three or four “food warriors” on standby.

We have expanded our operations and receive all kinds of food, from farm ingredients to fresh meals.

Any food that comes in is documented, weighed and separated into categories before distribution so that we can calculate how much greenhouse gas is kept away from landfills.

Throughout the movement control order, WaW has redistributed about 390,000 food packs and assisted over 60,000 families.

What makes it unique is that 80% of these food packs were repurposed from rescue ingredients and turned into wholesome meals for the beneficiaries.

More than 1.3 million kilogrammes of food have been rescued since WaW began. That amounts to an estimated 750kg of methane gas.

We have also recruited partner cooks such as chefs who lost their jobs due to the pandemic, hawkers and B40 home cooks to process these ingredients into delicious and nutritious food packs.

It is vital for us to understand the Malaysian context in our line of work.

We cannot feed our communities without understanding local needs and culture. About 80% of our recipients are Muslim and we understood from early on that the food we distributed had to cater to their needs.

We have also started collecting and rescuing used tapau containers (only the ones which have been used for halal meals) to be repurposed for our food distribution missions.

The highlight of our work is the relationships we build along the way.

For example, we once helped a couple who lived in a makeshift house and sold scrap items to sustain themselves.

We were able to secure a home for them in Puchong and now, the couple work for WaW as home cooks. They have also started their own food distribution programme and are helping their own neighbourhood and community.

Over the past three years, there has been a level of participation and unity of various Malaysians coming to our cause – that is the main driving factor for us.

Malaysia is definitely one of – if not the most – unique countries in the world. We are multiracial, we are multicultural and we have a level of diversity that no other country has.

One way to be a true Malaysian is to support another Malaysian. This will help us build a great nation together!