More than 1500 food packets were distributed to people around Coimbatore by members of the No Food Waste (NFW) and Penta Ladies Circle no.37, as a part of the World Food Day celebrations here on Friday.

The members of the organization conducted various events in the city to create awareness about food wastage and the importance of sharing food with the unprivileged. The campaign started in Race Course in the morning with a food walk. Later, the Corporation Commissioner K. Vijayakarthikeyan flagged off the #zerohungerhour campaign at noon, as part of the worldwide celebrations. Snacks, including biscuits, sweets, and chips were distributed along with food packets.

An exclusive application, #nfwcloud, was also launched by the organization in order to collect excessive food from hotels and party halls so as to distribute them to the hungry. A.G. Padmanathan, the coordinator of the NFW, said that the application would help reach people from cities including Coimbatore, Erode, Salem, Dharmapuri, and Chennai. “We are aiming to create awareness among 10 lakh students all over the state and take this campaign to the next level,” he added.

He further said that they chose school children because they waste more food than anybody else. “As many as 1,10,000 tons of food is wasted every year by educational institutions. This is a major concern which needs to be addressed immediately,” he added.

Launching the NFW application, Corporation Mayor, P.Rajkumar said that the culture of Tamil Nadu gives importance to the sharing of food items with other people. “As children, we were taught to not waste food and eat every morsel on the banana leaf,” he said. He advised the children of the Shree Baldevdas Kikani Vidhya Mandir School to share food and not waste it.