- Community-focused campaign encourages mindful consumption and food waste reduction during the holy month
Abu Dhabi, UAE, March 5, 2025 – ne’ma, the UAE National Food Loss and Waste Initiative, has extended its 2025 Ramadan campaign, Valuing Our Roots, reinforcing the importance of responsible consumption, sustainability, and community-driven action during the holy month of Ramdan.
ne’ma’s campaign calls on individuals, families, and businesses to make intentional choices when shopping, cooking, sharing, and preparing for large gatherings. By doing so, we honor the enduring traditions of reflection, gratitude, balance, and making mindful use of resources during Ramadan. Through community-driven initiatives, the campaign emphasizes food rescue, redistribution, and waste reduction, supporting the UAE’s goal to reduce food loss and waste by 50 percent by 2030.
ne’ma continues to collaborate with key partners across the food ecosystem to promote mindfulness, ensuring surplus food is rescued and redistributed effectively. A key campaign initiative is ne’ma’s sponsorship of the One Million Surplus Meals, a large-scale effort to recover and distribute untouched surplus food in collaboration with the UAE Food Bank and Reloop, and involving hotels, restaurants, and catering services companies (HORECA). The initiative also incorporates food waste recycling, with inedible food waste collected for composting, supporting a circular economy approach. The program will engage more than 75 hotels across Abu Dhabi, Dubai, and Ras Al Khaimah, with structured data collection to measure its impact on food waste reduction.
During Ramadan, ne’ma is also scaling up Community Smart Fridges, working with the HORECA sector and tech startups, to place fridges in high-demand areas, ensuring surplus food is safely redistributed. The fridges will be stocked with freshly prepared meals and available in several locations across Abu Dhabi and Dubai. The initiative includes training for kitchen and hospitality staff on standardized meal packaging, and a structured collection and distribution system to ensure efficiency and safety.
The ne’ma Family Iftar Box program, in partnership with Takatof, focuses on rescuing surplus food from food distributors, retailers, and farmers. Volunteers will pack and distribute these food boxes across Abu Dhabi, Al Dhafra, Al Ain, Sharjah, and Ras Al Khaimah, ensuring that high-quality surplus food reaches families in need instead of going to waste. Each box will contain fresh produce, staple grains, protein sources, canned goods, and other essential items. This initiative also offers a meaningful corporate social responsibility (CSR) opportunity, allowing businesses to participate through food donations, sponsorships, and corporate volunteering.
Khuloud Hassan Al Nuwais, Chief Sustainability Officer of the Emirates Foundation, and ne’ma’s Committee Secretary General, said: “Ramadan is a time of generosity, gratitude, and shared responsibility. With Valuing Our Roots, we are taking real action to rescue food, reduce waste, and ensure that resources are used responsibly. By making mindful choices—when we shop, cook, share, and celebrate—we can honor our traditions while also protecting our future. Through collective action, we can move closer to becoming a nation where no food is wasted.”
The new initiative builds on the success of the “Count Your ne’ma” (Count Your Blessings), campaign launched last year, which adopted a practical approach to saving food and redistributing it, in addition to ongoing efforts to reduce waste. By integrating data-driven strategies, expanding partnerships, and engaging volunteers, the “Valuing Our Roots” campaign aims to create long-term behavioral change and further strengthen the UAE’s leadership in food sustainability. The campaign also represents a unified effort to prevent food from reaching landfills during Ramadan and beyond.
In line with the UAE’s Year of Community, the campaign builds on last year’s Count Your Blessings initiative by taking an action-oriented approach to food rescue, redistribution, and waste reduction efforts. By integrating data-driven strategies, expanding partnerships, and mobilizing volunteers, Valuing Our Roots aims to create long-term behavioral change and strengthen the UAE’s leadership in food sustainability. The campaign represents a united effort to work toward a Zero Food Waste to Landfill goal during Ramadan and beyond.
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About ne’ma
ne’ma – the National Food Loss and Waste Initiative, is a response to the call to action by the President of the United Arab Emirates, His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, to reduce food waste, encourage individual and social responsibility, and promote sustainable practices across the food value chain.
Established in 2022, ne’ma aims to address overproduction and overconsumption and build new standards that can contribute to the reduction of food loss and food waste, reconnecting with the country’s deep-rooted traditional values of social responsibility and mindful stewardship of national resources.
For more information, please visit: www.nema.ae