Solving MENA's food waste crisis

In the MENA region, food waste is insanely high.

We’re talking over 250kg per person on average each and every year.

For context, this is well over double the average for both Europe and the US.

🚨 This is setting off alarm bells because:

1. Growing food is remarkably difficult due to the whole, y’know, lack of water and dry landscape

2. The number of mouths to feed keeps going up - rapid population growth means that the region will overtake Europe by 2050

3. MENA isn’t food secure - it’s currently dependent on an estimated $33 billion in food imports every year

TL;DR - the situation is stark.

If we zoom in, the GCC is the biggest culprit when it comes to food waste, and Saudi Arabia in particular, is one of the worst offenders in the world.

In the Kingdom, food waste represents up to 51% of overall waste, with the average person wasting a staggering 250kg of food every year 🤯

And what’s worse, there’s not even one specific part of the food chain cycle that you can point to and say “Hey, that’s it, there’s the problem!”

It’s happening at every stage.

• To get more granular, the split is about 30:70, with the smaller portion at the consumer level and the larger portion happening at earlier stages like production, distribution, and retail.

From fruit and vegetables discarded on farms for not fitting the bill, to leftover meals going uneaten in restaurants, and products just flat-out expiring on supermarket shelves.

The latter two problems especially, are much more difficult to tackle than they might appear at first glance.

It’s one thing to give away surplus meals or food products on an ad-hoc basis, its another entirely to get them into the hands (and bellies) of the right customers, at the right time, at scale.

Nonetheless, in Saudi Arabia, Rabah Habiss and Abdulaziz Al Saud decided they were going to do just that.

Inspired by the success of UK-based startup Too Good to Go, which addresses this problem in a European context, the duo founded Barakah.

🥘 Barakah: tackling food waste in The Kingdom

The platform launched in 2022, with a simple, clearly defined (albeit of course difficult) goal:

• Enable consumers to purchase surplus meals and reusable food products from restaurants and grocery retailers, helping to reduce food waste while creating new revenue opportunities for businesses.

But surprisingly, one of the earliest challenges Barakah encountered didn’t actually have anything to do with logistics.

Rather, it had everything to with perception.

📰 Flipping the script

It's important to note that in the Middle East, hospitality is an ingrained cultural norm, often measured by the abundance of food, which drives people to buy in bulk and prepare more food than they can consume.

(As someone with a stomach like a bottomless pit, this is frankly, a dream come true. However, I must admit that on occasion, even I have struggled to finish plates that have been put in front of me!)

As a result, there can be a cultural reluctance to consume leftovers or reheat food, as food that isn’t fresh is perceived as lower quality and is therefore often discarded.

For Barakah’s solution to achieve adoption at scale, telling the public that they were simply playing their part for the good of the planet wasn’t going to be enough on its own to turn the dial.

Instead, they decided to:

1. Change the perception that surplus food is leftover food

2. Speak to users’ religious and cultural views around food waste

3. Emphasise cost savings and discounts for consumers and retailers

Did it work, you ask?

Well, Barakah has gained over 1.5 million users, partnered with more than 1000 retailers - including global brands like Dunkin and Tim Hortons - and sold over 750k meals that would have otherwise been discarded, across six Saudi cities.

So yes, it seems they’re off to a very promising start.

📲 How it works?

The startups’ pricing model is good news for businesses - they recoup money on food that would otherwise end up in landfill, and for consumers - no markups, only discounts.

Barakah itself makes its money via commission on each transaction.

The Barakah app utilises an interactive map to help users locate the available meals at nearby stores.

• Unlike other food ordering apps, curbside pickup constituted the majority of its transactions (Oct ‘23), amounting to 88%.

That being said the startup has seen significant demand for delivery.

To address the logistical challenges and ensure economic viability for both the company and its customers, they introduced a service where orders are grouped together, with fees split among customers, leveraging their third-party partners.

This falls under a service called “Barakah Bags”, where users can reserve surplus meals once they are available on the app.

Barakah also provide merchants with a dashboard that illustrates impact analytics, highlighting operational efficiency and contribution towards ESG objectives.

To build partnerships and expand across the food & beverage sector, Barakah raised $1.5 million in a Seed round in September 2023, backed by Oryx HP, 500 Sanabil, KAUST Innovation Ventures, and Plus VC.

Additionally, in March 2024, they secured further funding led by FoodLabs, marking FoodLabs' first MENA investment.

Expansion across the GCC is on the cards, and the future looks encouraging.

But what about the state of play generally in the regional food waste space?

🚮 State of play

Food waste is expensive business.

Costing $2.6 trillion globally every year to be exact.

Factor in that the MENA region also wastes up to 30% of its water and energy due to food waste, leading to increased greenhouse gas emissions, soil degradation, and reduced profits for farmers…

And things are spelled out pretty plainly.

Look, I’m not suggesting that governments in the Middle East have their heads in the sand when it comes to the problem. They patently don’t.

Both the UAE (ne’ma) and Saudi Arabia have recently pledged to cut down 50% of their food waste and loss by 2030.

Similar initiatives and policies have also been implemented in Jordan, Egypt, and beyond.

Progress is being made, but it’s clear that the climate should be ripe for local startups to enter the fray and accelerate things further.

So why aren’t they?

Stay tuned for Part 2 next week! (quite the cliffhanger)

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