A Day in Israel’s Knesset
Food Rescue at the Forefront
During a special day dedicated to raising awareness for food rescue in Israel’s Knesset, Leket Israel had the opportunity to present its second annual Food Waste and Rescue Report. Gidi Kroch, Leket Israel’s CEO, and Chen Herzog, Chief Economist at BDO Ziv Haft, reported on its findings and recommendations at the State Comptroller Committee, the Internal Affairs and Environment Committee and the Labor, Welfare and Health Committee.
Gidi Kroch shared the following: “In September 2015, the UN set a goal to reduce food waste by 50% by 2030 which was then adopted by the U.S. Israel needs to take the same steps, to set a national goal to reduce food waste and establish crucial legislation concerning this issue.”
Chen Herzog added: “Food rescue is not philanthropy. It is economically sound. For every shekel spent, the ROI is 3.6 shekels.”
In addition, Leket Israel ackno
wledged the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) as Leket’s largest prepared food donor. Brigadier General and Chief Logistics Officer Yossi Iluk was presented with a special Leket Israel award at the afternoon conference hosted by Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein.
Last year alone, The IDF donated over 460,000 surplus meals collected from 50 army bases for distribution to Israeli families in need and today, Leket is working with 60 bases with the number of hot meals being collected increasing daily.
Pini Fefer, Director of Agency Relations at 
Leket Israel, shares: “Since the beginning of our cooperation with the IDF, they have demonstrated a sincere commitment to rescuing as many excess meals as possible, to the point where the number of meals rescued is doubling each year. It is thanks to this generous quantity of meals donated by the IDF that Leket is able to supply more prepared food than ever before.”
The conference was attended by Knesset members from a cross section of political parties. All were in agreement that both setting a national goal to reduce food waste and passing the law encouraging food rescue are the next steps necessary to make significant inroads addressing Israel’s food insecurity crisis.
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