What’s happening in Asian Church and what does it mean for the rest of the world?

With the fridge comes food rescue, a practice of collecting food that would otherwise go waste to feed the needy

Bishan residents help themselves to the pastries inside the community fridge. (Photo supplied)

It’s Wednesday evening when a car reverses into a parking lot of an apartment block in Bishan Town, a residential area in Singapore.

The driver hands over three large carriers with bread, cakes, and unsold pastries from a bakery that would have been thrown away otherwise.

Volunteers empty them onto a round table and begin to repack the pastries into disposable plastic bags. Some place the food items on shelves inside the community fridge nearby.

Community fridges such as the one in Bishan Town operate in several residential areas of Singapore, supported by charity groups and grassroots organizations. They aim to help the poor and to cut the increasing food waste amid spiraling food insecurity in the tiny nation.

As soon as all the pastries are in the fridge, the waiting residents swarm it to help themselves.

“Each person takes up to four! Make sure there’s enough for everyone,” calls out Alice Leong, a volunteer who comes to help whenever she can.

“I used to meet a lot of elderly folk in the neighborhood. They would tell me about their financial problems,” said Leong, who began to volunteer when the community fridge project began in Bishan Town in October 2021.

Leong, who retired two years ago, said she was never active in the community but began to volunteer as the community fridge could help residents. It can save on food costs equivalent to about two weeks of groceries, she said.

Wendy Nguyen Lien, 49, a beneficiary of the community fridge at Bishan, who also volunteers for it, agrees.

“I used to spend S$30 to S$50 (about US$ 21 to 35) a week at the supermarket. Now, I don’t have to go to the supermarket to buy food or vegetables for one to two months at a time, because I can get all my food from food rescue,” Nguyen said.

Food rescue is the practice of collecting unsold food from businesses that would otherwise go to waste, and distributing them to the needy.

Food waste is a major concern in Singapore. Annually around 26,000 tonnes of food items, worth US$240million, are thrown away by Singapore households, most of them fruits and vegetables, shows a study by Singapore Environment Council.

The study also said that some 342,000 tonnes of food items are lost in Singapore before it reaches retail and consumers, 49 percent of it are fruits and vegetables.

The food rescue programs started in Singapore in 2018, have grown more popular and widespread now.

Singapore was ranked by the Economist Intelligence Unit as the most food-secure nation in the world on the Global Food Security Index in 2019. However, its ranking had dropped to 28th by 2022.

A 2020 study titled "The hunger report: An in-depth look at food insecurity" by the Lien Center for Social Innovation revealed that 10 percent of Singaporean households experienced food insecurity in the previous 12 months, with 40 percent experiencing it at least once a month.

Examples are people like Nguyen, who collect unsold bread and vegetables from retailers twice a week. If she gets excess, Nguyen used to give to the community.

Since Nguyen got to know of the community fridge via social media, she has been channeling her surplus collection to the fridge. 

“I feel happy when I can help people, especially during the pandemic,” Nguyen said. “We help people, only then can we help ourselves. That was the only way we could get through the pandemic, by sharing and helping each other.”

Fen Ng, the chairperson of the Bishan East Zone 1 Residents’ Committee in charge of the community fridge, told UCA News that the project was born out of the pandemic.

In Singapore, residents’ committees function as grassroots links between citizens and the government, and organize events such as tours to engage the residents, Ng said.

During the pandemic, when all activities were suspended, Ng and her team began to think about ways to engage residents.

Ng came up with the idea of having “a home within a garden” on the ground floor of an apartment block. When they began to harvest from it, they considered the idea of a community fridge.

“With the fridge comes food rescue,” says Ng, “We knew that [food rescue] was very popular and well-received in many other parts [of the country], but no one had attempted it in Bishan.”

Ng and her team then contacted food rescue groups, such as Fridge Restock Community SG. They study the management of community fridges and help re-stocking them.

“We rescue fresh produce from the wholesale center in Singapore,” said Daniel Yap, founder of Fridge Restock Community SG.

“We go to every vendor and ask for any ugly, unsellable fresh produce, collect it, and sort it out into different piles. We arrange for drivers to send it out to community fridges, community clubs, and welfare organizations.”

Yap said they currently help re-stock some 20 community fridges in Singapore at least twice a month.

At some community fridges, the food is given only to the low-income or the needy. The managers open them only at selected hours and allow only those who registered with them to collect the food.

But Ng would not consider doing something similar.

“The intention is to make it welcoming and homely. Nothing should be under lock and key as it sends a negative message. It also raises questions, such as who is this special group that is entitled to enjoy these benefits?” she explained.

For some food-insecure households, it is not affordability, but lack of accessibility that prevents people from getting sufficiently nutritious food. This is especially true of the elderly or physically handicapped, for whom independent mobility is a challenge, volunteers say.

Ng said each time when their fridge is re-filled, the team announces it through text messages to lower-income families in the neighborhood.

Restocking happens regularly. Twice weekly, food rescuers send bread and fresh produce to the Bishan fridge, feeding an estimated 100 families each week.

The residents’ committees are meant to increase the involvement and bonding of the residents. The involvement of residents in the fridge project is far more than in any other event, Ng said.

For Ng, the fridge project has been “an unprecedented success” in Bishan.

The real backbone of the Church in Asia (and the rest of the world, for that matter) is Christian mothers. We have brought this series on the Catholic Church’s unsung heroines to you FREE.

Help UCA News reporters publish such great stories of the Church always.

Don’t let Myanmar regime and its crimes continue

Rewriting the story of food

Indian bishops express shock over Kerala human sacrifice

Bishop Jean-Yves Nahmias of Meaux has blessed the site of the future Saint Columban Church and school, a multi-million euro project that bucks the trend of church closures

The exclusion of emigrants is revolting, sinful and criminal, says pope

Synodal virtues: valuing and extending theological education (Part III)

End the death penalty: choose life

Major Eastern-rite Syro-Malabar Church wrestles with liturgical reform

Can't read the image? click here to refresh.

Can't read the image? click here to refresh.