Saudi Gazette report

JEDDAH — Excess food helped Itaam (feeding) welfare organization prepare more than 13 million meals in seven years.

Faisal Al-Shoushan, spokesman of the organization, said this year alone as many as 1,857,697 meals were prepared and distributed among the poor and needy families in various parts of the Kingdom.

The organization was established in 2012.

Al-Shoushan said 780,113 meals were distributed in Jeddah while 109,396 were distributed in Riyadh, 104,568 in Dammam and 41,482 in Jubail.

He explained that the organization has a number of production lines consisting of cooked food, vegetables, fruit, sweets, pastries, rice, meat and dry and canned food.

A recent report by the Ministry of Environment, Water and Agriculture said about 30 percent of the food is wasted annually at the cost of about SR49 billion.

It said the annual share of the wasted food per individual is about 260 kg which is more than double the world share which is 115 kg.

The ministry said the Kingdom wastes about 8.3 million ton of food every year.