The Malaysian Insight

AS he closes his Ramadan stall for the night, Kedah-born Hisham Kadir readies about 10 food packets for the homeless and still has some leftover.

These will be given out as “sedekah” for those who are praying at the Kota Kinabalu mosque nearby to break their fast, he said.

The retired teacher said he is already happy with the day’s profits and did not mind donating the excess food to the needy.

It is better than seeing the food go to waste, a common byproduct of Ramadan bazaars, but Hisham said the situation is much better now than before.

A 2015 study by Sabah’s Universiti Malaysia Sabah found that food waste accounted for 75% of the 500 tonnes of rubbish sent to the Kayu Madang landfill near the Kota Kinabalu Industrial Park, near Telipok, each month.

With growing awareness of the problem, stall operators have learnt to plan food preparation better and to understand customer habits, Hisham said.

Every day during the fasting month, he spends RM800 to buy 15kg of chicken drumsticks, 10kg of wings, 10kg of chicken butt, 5kg of beef, 5kg of mutton, rice, noodles and other food items.

He starts cooking them at 2pm at the bazaar in Lintasan Deasoka in Kota Kinabalu, serving them hot to visitors who would begin browsing for food at the bazaar at 3pm each day.   

“By the time people break their fast here, I would earn roughly a nett profit of RM300. Usually, more than 80% of the food would be gone by this time.

“We don’t want food to be thrown away if it is still good, so we give it away for free to the needy who would usually come by around 6pm, or to the nearby mosque,” he said.

Hisham said this is the common practice among almost all stall operators at the Ramadan bazaar here. It is also the advice by Kota Kinabalu City Hall (DBKK) officers to avoid food waste.

On average, more than 30% of the food prepared by stall operators in Kota Kinabalu are left unconsumed.

While a portion of the excess is given away to the needy, operators usually throw the rest away.

“There is nothing much we can do. Sometimes, we share it with the other stall operators. But there will be a few more kilos of food left and this has to be thrown away,” said Hisham.

There is a larger amount of unconsumed food on rainy days when fewer people come to the bazaar, but Hisham says he tries to minimise waste by reducing the amount prepared.

“This comes from understanding the pattern of our clients. After a few days, we would be able to roughly estimate how much to prepare,” he said.

This year, DBKK has allowed 54 Ramadan bazaar sites in Kota Kinabalu alone, with nine new sites involving over one thousand stall operators district-wide.  

DBKK’s Market and Hawker Division chief Felix Leong admitted a spike in organic waste in the city landfill during festive seasons, especially during Ramadan.

“Food waste is one of the elements in organic wastes,” said Leong. “We have yet to do a proper study to capture the amount of food waste.”

Still, Leong said the awareness food operators in the city was better now when dealing with food wastes.

Some hotel operators cook only based on the number of reservations received and by estimating the number of would be walk-in customers.

Promenade Hotel general manager Hafizan Wong said his hotel encouraged reservations as it allowed the hotel to manage the food quantity.

The Sabah Chapter of Malaysian Association of Hotels chairman Gordon Seet said hotels had come up with many ways to reduce wastage.

“If there are uneaten dishes, it will be reused in some way, as wastage is also cost to the hotels,” said Seet, adding that the hotels either can recycle the dish or opt for composting to produce fertiliser, and to plant their own herbs for cooking. – May 31, 2019.