Eliminating food waste in Israel is crucial to eliminating food insecurity in Israel, the BDO consulting firm's Chief Economist Chen Herzog told Arutz Sheva.
"Every year in Israel, food worth 90.3 billion shekels is lost, is wasted. From a national point of view...1.6% of Israel's GDP is lost," Herzog said. "If we rescue this food and provide it to the needy, we can, in a very cost-effective way, eliminate the food insecurity problem in Israel."
"f the government wants to provide a cost effective and efficient way to reduce poverty, to reduce and eliminate gaps and food insecurity gaps, food rescue constitutes a very cost-effective way. If we invest 800 million shekel, we can rescue food worth 3.2 billion shekels and eliminate completely Israel's food insecurity problems."
Herzog also noted that "6% of the food that was distributed in the retail sector was lost. The cost of this food was already accounted for in the cost of food that was actually sold. So we as consumers already paid for this food that was later thrown out. Food loss contributes to the cost of living, and elimination or reduction of food lost will reduce cost of living and cost of food."
Leket Israel CEO Gidi Kroch said, "In 2015, Israel's comptroller came out with a report saying - it actually stated that there is no information regarding food loos and food waste in Israel. Leket Israel initiated the report, the first report in 2015, and it was about the farming industry in Israel. The second report was about prepared food, food that was collected from industrial companies, and from cafeterias in industrial companies, and so forth. The third report naturally evolved into the retail sector....I think there's a lot of interesting information in the retail sector, and a lot of salvageable food."
Kroch also said that Leket is working to pass a law providing an "umbrella" for companies so that they can donate as much food as they can.
"A lot of companies want to donate, but need the legal umbrella in order to be able to give us as much food as we can rescue," he said.