MORE than 850 registered families waited patiently in line at the low-cost PPR Kerinchi people’s housing project on a rainy night recently to collect food packs made up of anything from fresh produce to canned beans which would have otherwise been thrown out by wholesalers.

The weekly food aid is part of a new programme by The Lost Food Project (TLFP), a charity collecting unsold food from wholesalers and supermarkets to be distributed to poor communities.

“We started this project when we saw supermarkets throwing away bananas that were bruised. We thought it was a waste as most of the bananas were still edible,” said TLFP co-founder and vice-president Angela Chin.

“So we talked to the supermarkets and said we would take what products they did not want, and (figure out) what we could do with them.”

That was how TLFP started in 2015, focusing on the logistics of collecting surplus food from wholesale markets, supermarkets, manufacturers, and suppliers, and channelling them to those in need, such as children’s homes, old folks homes, women’s aid organisations, and currently local low-cost housing projects in the Klang Valley.

Chin said her aim was to extend the programme “to as many communities as possible” nationwide.

TLFP has various partners it sources food from daily.

Their various provisions include vegetables and fruits from the Selayang wholesale market, and soups and non-perishables from companies like Campbell’s, Giant, Village Grocer, and BIG Grocer, said Chin, who is a banker.

Food that are close to their expiry dates, or have external damage to their packaging are saved from the landfills and given to the needy as they are still edible, she said.

PPR Kerinchi resident Tamilselvam Karthimurigaya, 60, said that the food was in good condition and that the aid given eased the burden on his family of four.

“If this project continues, no one will go to the night markets,” he told The Malaysian Insight as he waited to collect his food pack.

The food distributed at PPR Kerinchi totalled up to 8,278kg, equivalent to 28,000 meals.

Another resident, Sawiyah Osman, 70, said the project was a great opportunity to get the community together from different races and backgrounds.

“It is ‘masyarakat’ (community) time, where the old and young and people of different backgrounds come together.

“Of course anybody would be happy to receive free food. It’s like getting presents” she said.

Lembah Pantai MP Fahmi Fadzil, who attended TLFP’s project launch at PPR Kerinchi, said these food programmes were very personal to him as he and his friends had been doing similar charity work themselves.

“I myself used to pack the food to give to people in the PPR before the general election. I find this to be a very noble effort, because we’re saving food for people and not wasting it,” he said. – November 17, 2018.