Pearl-Qatar's HDC GM to open food bank in Lebanon

Walid Maalouf, general manager for Pearl-Qatar developer Hospitality Development Company (HDC), is to launch a food bank in Lebanon to help the 29% of population living below the poverty line.

The personal project will be an NGO and Maalouf already has a team of consultants from Booz & Co working on the feasibility of it.

In June it will become a legal organisation, he revealed, following which he will fund raise to get the project off the ground.

“I’ve been working in this industry since I was a kid and it’s appalling the amount of food we throw away, whether it is hotels, restaurants, airline companies, supermarkets, even agricultural producers,” he said.

“In Lebanon, over a quarter of the population live on under US $4 a day.”

When up and running the NGO will collect food from for-profit organisations and distribute it around the country to charities.

There are legal challenges to the scheme, admitted Maalouf, and persuading some international hotel operators and owners to take part has been a task, but he reiterated that a properly set up food bank is a professional organisation.

“Operators worry about food hygiene laws,” he said. “But food donors sign legal disclaimers and the minute it leaves the premises they’re not responsible any more.

“The food bank takes out an insurance and the liability lies with it.”

Maalouf, a Lebanese national, said that the scheme will benefit Lebanon in more ways than one: “The problem in our country and others in the Middle East is that we don’t have proper waste management system and we end up throwing the food in landfill.

“A food bank has a great environmental benefit too.”