Luxury Hotel Collects Food Leftovers to Feed Shelter Dogs

• There are lots of food being wasted every day, especially from supermarkets, hotels, and restaurants, which have to dispose of leftovers.
• Chef J Gourmet from Fairmont Hotel in Abu Dhabi decided to send leftovers to animal shelters.
• The hotel is calling out to other hotels and volunteers to join them in this initiative.

Restaurants, hotels, and supermarkets are required to dispose of uneaten food every day. This is necessary in order to eliminate the chances of food poisoning and other untoward incidents that may arise from keeping leftover food around.

It’s a valid reason, but still, it’s disheartening to think of all perfectly decent food going to waste. A lot of people have suggested that these establishments should do something to curb food wastage.

A five-star hotel in Dubai did just that!

Chef J Gourmet, who works at the five-star Fairmont Hotel in Abu Dhabi decided to do something about food wastage. He collected the hotel’s leftover food and gave it to animal shelters! They decided to name it the Doggy Bag Initiative.

“We want more hotels and restaurants to join us in the fight against throwing away leftovers so that they don’t become rubbish but food for other creatures,” the chef said.

He explained that they carefully choose the ingredients that they give to the shelters. Cheese, sauces, spices, and desserts are not allowed. They take rice, vegetables, fish, meat, and bread for the animals.

In the pictures posted by Chef J Gourmet, Fairmont’s Food & Beverage Manager, Elias Saad, can be seen helping with the turnover of food for the shelter.

They were collecting leftovers from the hotel’s Friday bunch, which they usually throw away.

They took the leftovers to a kitchen and minced it up.

They delivered the food to the Cloud 9 Pet Hotel and Care to see if the strays would eat the food.

As expected, the dogs loved the delicious leftovers!

This generous action prompted other luxury hotels, such as the Crowne Plaza Hotel and Grand Millenium Hotel Al Wahda to do the same.

The hotel has pledged to continue to send leftovers for the strays but they also asked vets housing strays, volunteers, and other hotels and restaurants to join and help with the initiative.

According to a report by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), the amount of food wastage per year will increase by a third in 2030. They estimate that 2.1 billion tonnes of food will be lost or thrown away. This is equivalent to 66 tonnes of food per second.