It was just a rare opportunity for 5 Indonesian campuses to have a joint international class with quite a large turnout! The topic was part of the IN2FOOD program to incorporate food waste management into our local curriculum as an interdisciplinary effort to create awareness and action into this global issue, particularly when Indonesia is the second largest food waste creator in the world to date, next to Saudi Arabia. 

After all was said and done, it boiled down to concrete action – Day #3 of IN2FOOD Stakeholder Meeting did just that – practical contribution of practitioners and environmentalists alike! Depok Smart Food City and Food Literacy Program became the talked about innovation in the awareness of Food Waste Management as expounded by Naurissa Biasini, M.I.Kom (a lecturer of UPJ within its IN2FOOD team) and clearly setting an example as a community service outreach project towards the care of our environment.

IN2FOOD Project “got real and dirty” for three days from 14 September 2021 facing a spectrum of stakeholders including governmental institutions, industry practitioners, academics and researchers. Even on Day #1, a flood of data, opinions and diverging conclusions were laid bare during the penta-helix discussions about food waste in Indonesia. It was a clear good start spearheaded by Bapak Eddy Yusuf, UPJ coordinator for IN2FOOD and his team, alongside other university partners, putting together a list of invitees to make this viable and effective.