Retailers mull ways to reduce food wastage
The Retail Trade Association of Kenya (Retrak) estimates that Kenya loses an estimated Sh72 billion through wastage every year and has moved to help end the practice.
According to Retrak Chief Executive Wambui Mbarire, wastage saw Kenyans throw away close to100 kilogrammes of food annually, adding up to 5.2 million tonnes annually.
To cut back on the wastage, retailers will be pushing for a review of the Public Health Act, to include guidelines on how unsold safe food from Supermarkets and other eateries can be handled to benefit feeding programmes in the society.
“A review of the Act will seek to establish legislation that gives retailers and suppliers leeway to donate and process unsold fresh foods through creative value addition,” said Mbarire.
Food insecurity
An estimated 3.1 million people, mostly in the Northern Arid and Semi-Arid Lands (Asal), are severely food insecure following three consecutive poor rainy seasons that have hampered crop production.
Speaking at a workshop to discuss retail food losses and waste management in Nairobi, formal retailers committed to heighten the quality of fresh foods sold across their outlets, even as they ramped up efforts to reduce food waste and loss.
Retailers will collaborate with their fresh produce suppliers to institute more stringent quality management systems, detailed operating procedures, active product quality verification and continuous staff training.
Each outlet will analyse its data to identify how much fresh food is wasted, where and when the waste occurs, and come up with solutions.
