Penang's Great Food Paradox

BY: STAFF CORRESPONDENT

At the lighthouse: A recent photo showing a volunteer serving drinks to the needy at the Lighthouse Community Service Centre. It is reported that more people, mostly retrenched workers, now come to the centre for their meals.

Dec 19, GEORGE TOWN, MALAYSIA (STAR) — To many, Malaysia is a food paradise. To others, it is a food paradox. The Consumers Association of Penang (CAP) says Malaysians throw away more than 10 tonnes of leftover food every day — yet others are struggling to feed the hungry during Christmas.

Several non-profit organisations said they had to increase the amount of food distributed at their centres since the economic downturn as there were more hungry mouths to feed.

The Lighthouse Community Service Centre manager Belevendiran Joseph said more than 100 homeless and poor people looked to the centre for food daily. "We provide tea and dinner for about 120 people here every day. This works out to about RM7,500 monthly. "Previously, we had fewer than 100 people coming. But times are hard so more are coming to us to keep from going hungry," he said.

He said most of the "newcomers" were retrenched workers. "These are people who used to work in factories but have now fallen on hard times," he said.

He said individuals and the private sector could contribute by donating cooked food, rations or cash to help fund the centre.

International Society of Krishna Consciousness (Iskcon Penang) Food for Life director Krishna Das Kaviraj said the society used to serve lunch in front of the Goddess of Mercy Temple thrice weekly but had since increased this to four times weekly.

"We now serve 200 extra packets of rice per week because we find more families with children lining up in front of our van recently.

"The amount of food served for all our meals at our temple is also more now," he said. Georgetown Baptist Church pastor Yeoh Guan Hock said the church had also increased the food served at its drop-in centre in Hutton Lane.

"We started nine years ago and the number of people coming has definitely increased. "The church is spending more now on our free meals programme, which we run every Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday," he said.

Earlier this month, CAP has urged the Government to hold a campaign against food wastage and also called for legislation to make it a "crime" for hotels, large eateries and factory canteens to waste food.