Food waste often becomes visible at the end of the chain: in a kitchen bin, a collection truck or a landfill. By then, much of its value has already been lost. Food represents water, land, energy, labor, and investment, as well as the opportunity to sustain and feed people.

In the UAE, where approximately 80% of food is imported, making better use of food is closely connected to national food security. In response to President His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan’s call to action, ne’ma, the National Food Loss and Waste Initiative, is working to transform the UAE into a country where no food is wasted. This ambition intersects with the National Food Security Strategy 2051 and UN Sustainable Development Goal 12.3, which calls for global food loss and waste to be halved by 2030.

To get there, we must prevent loss and waste wherever possible, rescue and redistribute safe, edible surplus food, and recover value from what cannot be eaten. Every step matters, but the order matters most. 

Reducing food waste in hospitality

For a food business, prevention starts with understanding where and why food waste happens. Better forecasting, purchasing, storage, and portioning can reduce waste while improving operational efficiency. Measurement turns that opportunity into decisions that can be tested and improved.

Our work with hospitality partners shows what targeted action can achieve. During Ramadan, measurement and behavioral research helped identify patterns of overproduction and plate waste. In ne’ma’s hospitality trials, interventions reduced food waste by between 8% and 62%, while 94% of surveyed diners remained satisfied with their experience. Among a selected group of seven hotels that participated in our Ramadan program across three consecutive years, average daily food waste fell from 288 kg in 2023 to 143 kg in 2025.

Businesses can serve people well while preparing and discarding less food. To help make these improvements across the country, ne’ma has gathered data through the UAE’s first national Food Loss and Waste Baseline Study, covering the food value chain across all seven emirates. The ne’ma National Data Hub will build on this baseline to pinpoint where action is most needed and track national progress over time. 

Keep edible surplus feeding people

Even well-managed operations can generate surplus. When that food is safe to eat, it should reach people who can use it. This requires food businesses, logistics providers, community organizations and government to coordinate how surplus is identified, handled, transported and distributed.

During Ramadan 2026, ne’ma’s Family Iftar Box program brought together food suppliers, manufacturers and farmers to rescue more than 550,000 kg of surplus food. More than 55,000 boxes were distributed, benefiting over 16,000 families. Through our Community Fridges program, hospitality partners also rescued untouched surplus from Iftar buffets and made more than 40,000 meals available through smart fridges.

Redistribution protects the value of edible food. The information it provides can also help businesses understand when surplus arises and reduce it in future.

Recovering value from what remains

Some material cannot be safely redistributed. Separating it at source gives waste operators the opportunity to collect and process it for compost and other appropriate uses. Once food waste is mixed with general waste, those options become much harder to deliver.

ne’ma’s Zero Food to Landfill Framework puts this approach into practice with partners across the UAE. Since ne’ma’s inception through 2025, their collective efforts have diverted more than 2.6 million kg of food and food waste from landfill and produced more than 204,000 kg of compost to support local farmland.

The waste and recycling sector has a vital role here, but recovery depends on decisions made before collection. Food businesses and facility managers must separate material effectively. Operators need suitable processing capacity. Technology providers can improve measurement and identify opportunities to reduce losses. Government can help establish the conditions for these practices to work at scale.

That interdependence is why ne’ma works as a national convenor and custodian of food loss and waste reduction efforts. It brings stakeholders from every part of the food value chain together around shared evidence, practical solutions and the UAE’s goal to halve food loss and waste by 2030.

For the waste and recycling industry, the opportunity extends beyond managing what arrives at the end of the chain. By working with food businesses further upstream, the sector can help improve separation and recovery while contributing its expertise to food systems designed to waste less. With every sector playing its part, we move closer to becoming a nation where no food is wasted.

Khuloud Hasan Al Nuwais is the Executive Director, Emirates Foundation and the Secretary General of the ne’ma Steering Committee.