Hong Kong Sevens: 940kg of leftover stadium food helps feed 1,600 needy people
- Food Angel’s Zoe Lee says Hong Kong Sevens is their biggest source of rescued food
- Leftovers distributed to elderly and low-income families
Almost 1,000 kilograms of food was left over from last year’s Hong Kong Sevens, enough to feed about 1,600 people – and none of it went to waste, according to a local food “rescue” organisation.
Zoe Lee, associate CEO of Food Angel, said the Hong Kong Sevens is an annual bonanza in terms of leftover food with 120,000 people munching on a variety of menus offered by dozens of outlets at the Hong Kong Stadium over three days.
“The Hong Kong Sevens is definitely one of the biggest events for us,” said Lee, speaking at a function to celebrate the second anniversary of the HSBC Try Rugby development programme.
“We have other small events in hotels or sometimes from banquets. We have associations with certain hotels so we can take food from there, but for major, large-scale events, the rugby sevens is the biggest.”
Food Angel “rescues” about 5 tonnes of edible surplus food every day from more than 200 donors and recycles the haul by cooking and packaging it in centres around Hong Kong. The food is then distributed to those in need.
“Last year, we collected about 940 kilograms in total [at the Hong Kong Sevens] and we prepared about 900 meals and about 700 food packs.”
