BY GILLVEN MIXCOLLIN & IDA NADHIRAH
KUCHING: Having surplus food at the end of each sales day is a grim reality for traders in bazaars across the state, if not the whole country.
It means they have to reconcile with the math not adding up as leftover sales mean no financial returns from these items.
Given that market forces are difficult to predict accurately, it is a gamble traders take each business day. And those traders trading at Ramadan bazaars are no exception.
The MySaveFood programme launched by Deputy Minister of Domestic Trade and Cost of Living (KPDN) Fuziah Salleh is therefore a good initiative to address their predicament, if you will.
It seeks to reduce food waste at Ramadan bazaars in three steps, namely, collecting leftover food from vendors; weighing the food to record data and lastly distributing it to those in need.
This programme held in conjunction with Rahmah Ramadan Bazaar at Metrocity here aims to cultivate an effective surplus food management system at Ramadan bazaars.
Traders are now adopting measures to minimise food wastage at bazaars during Ramadan.
Many, faced with excess food at the end of the day, choose to donate it to nearby mosques.
Muhd Firdaus, 25, is among them, He donates surplus beverages to mosques or distributes them to individuals in need.
“If we are in a situation where our beverage stock is still large, I would donate our beverages to mosques and give them to buskers,” said Firdaus.
Ferdie, 34, concedes that some overestimate the amount of food they can sell a day.
“A lot of food is going to be wasted unfortunately, which is something we do not want to see.
“So, for my stall, when there too much leftovers of food or beverages, we would donate it to people having their meals at mosque during the fasting month,” said Ferdie.
In this context polytechnic students are actively involved in the programme at Ramadan bazaars.
Trader Dayang Zaleha, 48, contributes leftover food for them to distribute it to visitors, in an effort to reduce food waste.
“At Ramadan Bazaar, these students are conducting the ‘Save Food’ programme, where they collect surplus food and distribute it to visitors for free,” she said.
On the other hand, Nur Adriana Adnan, 33, has taken a more business approach to mitigate the food wastage issue.
She offers food at promotional prices, to a point that it is available to just about anyone in the Bazaar Ramadan to clear out her stock, which leaves nothing to waste.
“We have used Rahmah sales techniques so that buyers can buy food and drinks for breaking the fast at a reasonable prices,” she said.
