How Egypt gets leftover food in the hands of hungry people

Early one morning, servers at the Al-Aseel Al-Dimishqi restaurant began their usual preparations for the day. They laid out rows of baklava, kunafa, and other syrup-drenched, nut-stuffed delectables. But the offerings weren’t for customers who flock to the upscale New Cairo suburb. 

Instead, within an hour, staff from an organization called Tekeya had arrived to whisk away 135 portions of perfectly edible dishes.

The reason? The desserts – made a day earlier – weren’t considered fresh enough to dish up. 

Throughout Egypt, which boasts a rich culinary history, such views aren’t uncommon. The Arab-speaking country is the largest producer of food waste in the Middle East, and the 12th biggest offender globally, with each household averaging over 200 pounds of annual food waste. Now, though, amid a global reckoning over the food chain and its role in the climate crisis, attitudes in Egypt are slowly changing. 

The Al-Aseel restaurant is one of around a dozen across the Egyptian capital that Tekeya staff visits each day in a quest to stop fit-for-consumption food from being dumped. Restaurants pay a small annual fee that allows them to alert Tekeya whenever they have unsold food. Personal users of the app can then buy that food at half-price, or either the restaurant or the user can request Tekeya  deliver the food to a food bank or charity of their choosing. In total, up to 40 plates are saved from going to the trash each day.

A handful of similar apps can be found in the West, where staggering wastage is also the norm. But few exist in developing countries,  where growing Western-style overconsumption sits alongside soaring rates of malnutrition. Tekeya, which was inspired in part by the rituals around Ramadan, is the first such app in Egypt, where poor nutrition and undernourishment account for up to 55% of annual child deaths.  

“I’ve seen several platforms helping fight food waste across Europe. It’s uplifting to find one that does the same here in Egypt,” says Al-Aseel’s manager, Ramez Abo Abed, who has been using the app for three years.

Disposing wisely

In 2019, Menna Shahin had an idea particularly inspired by Ramadan, the Muslim holiday when the devout give to poor people and fast throughout the day. That prompts both celebration and waste. Since fasts are eventually broken with lavish meals at dusk, demand for food commodities soars by up to a third, and waste, in turn, also multiplies. 

“I would put so much thought into how to dispose of [food] responsibly without harming the environment, and how to minimize my excess usage,” Ms. Shahin says. “I thought to myself, why not assist everyone to dispose of their excess food wisely?”

Ms. Shahin ended up co-founding Tekeya along with her husband, Max Hartzen. By Tekeya’s second Ramadan, some 10,000 discounted meals were ordered during the holy month, with users choosing to donate roughly a quarter of those to charities.

Now a 15-member team, Tekeya continues to face the stigma associated with “leftover food,” says Aya Magdy, the startup’s account manager. “People presume that it’s food that has gone bad, making it difficult to convince them to buy or donate it.”

Traditional Egyptian fare includes delicately spiced falafel served piping hot, while koshary, a staple street food, provides a hearty kick through mixing rice and pasta with fresh onions, tomatoes, garlic, chili, lentils, chickpeas, and a dazzling array of spices – these and other classic dishes almost all require freshly chopped ingredients. 

But there’s a growing awareness of the impact of food waste on the environment. When food is thrown out, it rots and creates methane, a greenhouse gas that is almost 30 times as potent as carbon dioxide. To date, Tekeya counts at least 45,000 meals it has saved from ending up in landfills – preventing the equivalent of 133,000 kilograms (about 293,000 pounds) of carbon dioxide from being released into the environment, Ms. Shahin says.

The team also works hard to guarantee the quality of the food it passes on, carrying out regular checkups amid stringent requirements. And because trust is such a big factor, if clients complain that the food from a restaurant is too stale or otherwise unsatisfactory, collaboration is immediately terminated.   

The number of users has climbed steadily. The app now has more than 50,000 subscribers and 120 food suppliers in Cairo. And users tend to be conscientious themselves. Sara Harfoush, a teaching assistant in Cairo University’s Faculty of Economics and Political Science, was initially skeptical, so she conducted her own trials to gauge quality. After ordering off the app several times – and finding it satisfactory each time – she began buying food cheaply to donate to those in need. 

“The app idea is remarkable, especially in Egypt where food waste is massive. So to be able to cut that waste, easily, while saving edible food, is an excellent idea,” Ms. Harfoush says.

And, she points out, when she buys pastries from shops, she often isn’t served products baked on the same day anyway. “So I’m actually getting more for [my] money on Tekeya at half the price,” she notes.

Pioneering solutions

As with most of the Middle East, Egypt lags in official measures regulating food waste. A draft bill in Parliament proposes penalizing food suppliers who dispose of consumable food with fines of up to £500,000 (Egyptian; about $26,000) and the suspension of their licenses. But there is scant political will to tackle the problem or enforce regulation, says Zahra Saleh, a food industry researcher at the government-run National Research Center.

“This is why initiatives like Tekeya are priceless. They are pioneers and pave the way for more to be done to truly fight food waste,” says Mr. Saleh. 

The idea is catching on with well-known brands. Alban Khalifa, a dairy shop with multiple branches across Cairo, has been reducing food waste and financial losses through Tekeya for nearly two years. Regulars know they can snap up half-price puddings through the app at the close of day.

That food would otherwise join the tens of thousands of tons of ingredients overflowing from trash cans on many streets of Cairo. In rural areas, heaps of discarded vegetables and harvests rot in the sun, attracting stray animals.

There are other draws beyond environmental and sanitation concerns. Soaring inflation and another round of currency devaluation in March have further squeezed citizens in a country where a third of the population is classified as low-income earners. 

Mohamed Refaat, a pharmacist in Cairo, says he quickly became a regular user after learning about Tekeya. The combination of contributing to saving the environment and getting good food at a discount is, he says, “very attractive to any user given the soaring prices and rising inflation rates.”

This article was published in collaboration with Egab.