Attended by around 25 PSE employees, the lecture entitled “Food Consumption Wastage” was spearheaded by Melody Melo-Rijk, WWF’s Project Manager for Sustainable Consumption and Production in the Philippines. Her talk focused on helping the employees understand further the concept of food waste, examining their role as consumers and their contribution to the global food waste problem, and reframing food waste as an important economic, ethical, and environmental issue that we all have to address. She also shared limited yet glaring information on the current food waste landscape in the Philippines, which included statistics on Metro Manila producing 2,175 tons of food waste daily, and on rice wastage that is enough to feed 4.3 million people. Connecting this wasteful behavior with the fact that 2.4 million Filipino families have experienced being hungry and food insecure at least once in the past three months made the ironic gap more real for PSE employees, with most of them hearing about these things for the first time.

To encourage them to take part in the fight against food waste, Melo-Rijk introduced ways on how they can help as consumers. “As professionals working in a corporate setting, I know that a lot of you will have the habit of bringing your own baon for lunch. When you do, make sure you prepare only the suitable amount in every meal. When you go to the grocery, check the expiry dates of the food items you wish to purchase and try to stick with your shopping list to avoid the chances of producing food waste at home”, said Melo-Rijk. “Working in an area like BGC, you also would be inclined to dine out a lot. When you do, just order what you can finish, or better yet, if serving sizes are big, try to share your food with your companions. If there will be leftovers, always choose to bring them home, and if you can help it, try to lessen your visits to places that offer all-you-can-eat. These establishments tend to produce the most food waste in the food service industry”.