How Kisumu traders are turning food waste into meals for needy children

By late afternoon at Jubilee Market in Kisumu, the character of the day's business begins to change.

The bright colours that dominate the fruit stalls in the morning slowly give way to produce that has spent hours in the open air. Some bananas have softened, tomatoes have begun to lose their firmness and fruits that looked attractive to customers earlier in the day are now less appealing.

For traders, this is the difficult part of dealing in highly perishable food. A fruit that does not sell today may be impossible to sell tomorrow. A vegetable that begins to wilt can quickly become worthless in the eyes of a customer, even when it is still safe to eat.

For years, such produce often had one destination: the waste pile but at Jubilee Market, some traders are now making a different choice.

Felix Owino, who sells fruits at the market, looks at the produce that is unlikely to survive another few days and separates what can still be consumed from what has genuinely gone bad.

The edible surplus is donated. “I sell fruits, and we do this every Thursday. These are perishable goods, so instead of throwing them away, we give them out,” Owino says.

He is careful about what leaves his stall. “We don't give out bad food. We give out those that we see, if they stay for three days, will go bad and we would throw them away, polluting the environment.”

Owino usually brings in about six bags of fruit as new stock. Rather than allowing the remaining produce to deteriorate on the stall, he identifies what is still suitable for consumption but is unlikely to find a buyer and sets it aside for collection.

It is a small decision at the level of one trader, but repeated across a busy market, it represents a different way of thinking about food.

The question is no longer simply whether the food can be sold. It is whether food that can no longer attract a customer can still feed someone.

For another fruit trader at Jubilee Market, Alphine Opiyo, the answer has become clear. Opiyo has spent 10 years selling fruits at the market. She remembers a time when traders had limited options for produce that had lost its commercial value.

“Jubilee is one of the busiest markets in Kisumu. We sell perishable products and we used to have a dumpsite in front of the market,” she says.

Today, she says, some of that produce is redirected before it becomes waste. “Instead of throwing it to the dumpsite, we donate.”

The practice is also changing how some traders think about their own businesses. Food that cannot fetch its original price can sometimes be sold cheaply, processed into juice or given away while it is still safe.

The lesson, Opiyo says, has gone beyond the market. “Even at home, we now know how to manage food loss. When preparing food, you cook what you can manage and you cannot just throw it out and cause environmental pollution.”

At Uhuru Market, trader Betty Anyango describes a similar experience. Previously, traders could continue displaying produce until it was almost completely overripe. Once customers stopped buying it, it was discarded. The waste could remain in the market before being collected.

“We used to sell until it was almost ripe and going bad, then throw it away. The waste stays there long before the county government comes in to collect it,” Anyango says.

She believes there is a need for a deliberate mechanism that allows edible surplus to reach people who need it before it becomes waste.

“We should have a unit to share and help the environment. Let us come in. It is a game changer.”

The experiences of Owino, Opiyo and Anyango reveal a problem that is easy to overlook in the daily rhythm of an open-air market. They are not alone in Kisumu.

Food does not necessarily become waste when it becomes unsellable. Often, it first becomes unmarketable.

A bruised carrot, a softening fruit, wilted vegetables or produce with minor quality defects may no longer meet a customer's expectations for fresh-looking food, yet may remain nutritious and safe when properly assessed and handled.

That gap has become an opportunity for food rescue. In Kisumu, traders in Jubilee, Uhuru and Kibuye markets have been working as food rescue champions, identifying edible surplus, mobilising fellow traders to donate it, sorting and aggregating the food and linking it to institutions serving children and young people.

But the idea did not begin with a completely new culture of giving. Informal food sharing was already happening in the markets. What was missing was a system capable of organising efforts to preserve a clean environment.

John Sande, the City Focal Person for the AfriFOODlinks food rescue pilot at the Kisumu City Department of Environment, says the intervention helped turn an existing informal practice into a more coordinated process. “When the food rescue initiative was introduced, we found that informal sharing was already a culture in our markets,” Sande says.

The difference was that traders could now be connected to institutions able to receive the surplus, while procedures were introduced for sorting, food safety, collection, aggregation and redistribution.

The system created a bridge between two problems that often exist side by side: food being thrown away and people struggling to access nutritious meals.

At the centre of that bridge are the traders. They identify food that is unlikely to sell but may still be suitable for consumption. Rescue champions mobilise other traders, collect the eligible surplus, sort it and aggregate it at collection points. The food is then weighed and recorded before beneficiary institutions collect it.

The pilot linked the markets to Mama Ngina Children's Home, Kisumu Urban Apostolate Programme and Yatima Hope Centre.

For Pamela Ochola, who has been involved in the food rescue and redistribution process, the regular collection schedule has helped make the practice more predictable.

Since they started being active a few months ago, Jubilee Market has recorded 46 collections, Uhuru Market 49 and Kibuye Market 18, with Kibuye joining the initiative later.

The numbers are important because food rescue is a race against time. Unlike many other forms of recyclable waste, fresh food cannot simply be stored indefinitely until a collection becomes convenient.

It can deteriorate within hours or days. This makes reliable collection and clear communication essential.

The beneficiaries could come to the market, collect the food themselves and see where the donations were going. That trust became one of the foundations of the system.

Sande says predictable collection, regular communication and proper training are equally important.“Once traders understand what food can be recovered, who will collect it and where it will go, they are much more willing to participate,” he says.

The scale of the opportunity became more visible at Kibuye Market, where an assessment found 9.4 tonnes of fruit with quality defects.

Of that amount, approximately 5.7 tonnes were potentially suitable for donation.

The finding demonstrates how much food can sit in the space between commercial rejection and actual spoilage.

Maureen Gitagia, a Research Officer at the African Population and Health Research Centre, says consumer expectations play a significant role.

Customers generally want fresh, attractive produce. When fruits become soft, or vegetables begin to wilt, their market price falls, even when they remain edible.

“Good-looking and very fresh-looking produce are easy to market and they sell, but there is also the part of edibility,” Gitagia says.

The assessment identified several factors contributing to food loss, including mishandling, storage problems and inadequate infrastructure.

Cold storage and other appropriate facilities could help extend the life of highly perishable food, giving traders more time to sell, process or donate it.

But rescue is not about collecting everything. Food that is spoiled, contaminated or unsafe must never be redistributed.

Across Jubilee, Uhuru and Kibuye markets, the pilot recovered 4,089 kilogrammes of surplus food. That was equivalent to an estimated 17,778 meal occasions reaching approximately 200 children and teenagers each week.

An estimated 13 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions were also avoided through the recovery of food that would otherwise have been lost or discarded.

No food-safety incidents were reported during the intervention. The figures offer a glimpse of what can happen when food is intercepted before it enters the waste stream.

But they also reveal the limitation of the current system. The amount rescued remains considerably smaller than the amount of potentially recoverable food identified in the markets.

For Sande, the environmental case is as important as the food-security argument. Food waste is not simply something that disappears once it is taken away from a market. It becomes part of a larger waste-management problem.

Organic waste has to be collected and transported, using vehicles that consume fuel and generate emissions. At disposal sites, decomposing organic matter can produce methane, a potent greenhouse gas.

Sande says food rescue therefore supports Kisumu's efforts to reduce the amount of waste entering its disposal system while contributing to climate action and a circular economy.

“Food waste is not just a food security issue. It is also a climate-change and waste-management issue,” he says.

The logic is straightforward: preventing food from becoming waste avoids the environmental costs associated with producing, transporting and disposing of food that was never consumed.

The food rescue project was developed through the AfriFOODlinks pilot by the African Population and Health Research Centre (APHRC), in partnership with Food Bank Kenya and Kisumu County.

Globally, the scale is enormous. The Food and Agriculture Organisation estimates that about 13 per cent of food produced is lost globally after harvest and before reaching retail shelves. At the consumer end, the United Nations Environment Programme estimates that about 19 per cent of food available to consumers around 1.05 billion tonnes is wasted at retail, food-service and household levels.

Households account for about 60 per cent of that food waste, food service for 28 per cent and retail for 12 per cent. At the same time, an estimated 608 million to 696 million people experienced hunger in 2025, while about 2.1 billion people experienced moderate or severe food insecurity.

Approximately 2.69 billion people could not afford a healthy diet according to the latest estimates cited by FAO.

Fruits and vegetables, which are among the most important components of a healthy diet, are also among the foods particularly vulnerable to losses because of their perishability.

Food loss and waste also contribute an estimated 8 to 10 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, making reducing waste not only a food-security intervention but also a climate action.

Kenya faces the same contradiction. Research estimates that approximately nine million tonnes of food are lost or wasted along the country's supply chains every year, representing an economic loss of about Sh72 billion.

The volume is equivalent to roughly 1.8 million five-tonne trucks. The waste represents more than lost money. It represents wasted land, water, labour, energy and other resources used to produce food that never reaches a plate.

At Mama Ngina Children's Home, next to Kibuye Market, the impact is experienced not in tonnes or carbon calculations but at the dining table.

Centre Manager Hellen Tuli says the home receives food from the participating markets, depending on what traders have available. The donations include vegetables, fruits and other food products.

The additional supplies have introduced more variety into the children's meals. For another beneficiary centre in Nyalenda, teacher Catherine Elegelizu says the food has changed the menu while reducing some of the institution's expenditure on basic food items.

The centre receives tomatoes, onions, fruits, vegetables, cereals, rice, beans, maize, carrots, cassava, yams and both green and ripe bananas. The rescued food is collected in crates, sorted and transported to the centre. Dry goods are stored separately, while perishable products are kept in appropriate storage, including freezers where necessary.

The donations do not always arrive in the same quantities. Sometimes there is a large surplus; at other times, there is very little. The food received can last the centre two or three weeks depending on the quantity and the number of children being served.

For the children, however, the impact is more immediate. The arrival of the crates has become associated with variety. “On Thursdays, there is going to be variety,” Elegelizu says.

Oranges, bananas, sugarcane and other fruits can supplement the usual menu. The centre also supports children from the surrounding community who come for educational services and meals before returning home.

The success of the pilot does not mean Kisumu has solved food waste. In fact, one of the clearest lessons is how much remains to be done.

The pilot recovered just over four tonnes, while the Kibuye assessment alone identified 5.7 tonnes of fruit that could potentially have been donated.

Perishability, collection delays, inadequate infrastructure, limited storage and uncertainty among some traders can all prevent more food from being recovered.

Sande believes Kisumu must move from isolated food-rescue activities towards a stronger market-based recovery system.

That system should not be restricted to open-air markets. Supermarkets, mini-markets and other food outlets also generate surplus that could potentially be redirected, provided clear safety procedures are in place.

He says the city needs policies that clearly connect food donors, collection systems, beneficiary organisations and public-health safeguards. The infrastructure must also improve.

Cold-storage facilities, weighing equipment and appropriate transport would allow food to be recovered safely and quickly. Food rescue should also be incorporated into city programmes and county development plans so that it is not dependent solely on short-term projects. “We need to move from these isolated food rescue activities to building a more robust system that is market-based for recovery of food within Kisumu,” Sande says.

Sande says the city is working towards a stronger food-system structure that recognises food as an urban concern, while linking it to the county food-system strategy housed within the Department of Agriculture. That shift matters because food insecurity is not confined to rural areas.

In informal settlements, households may lack the land, space and resources available to some rural families for growing food. At the same time, the cost of food can be affected by urban policies, transport costs and other factors.

A more integrated food system, Sande argues, should therefore bring together food security, waste reduction, environmental protection, climate action and the circular economy.

Gitagia describes this as an important strength of the initiative. She describes food rescue as one of several possible solutions to food loss and waste. “It is not a one-size-fits-all solution,” she says. “It is one of the pathways of food loss and waste reduction.”

The distinction is important. Rescuing food will not solve poor storage, inadequate transport, farm-level losses, weak markets or household waste.

But it can prevent edible food from becoming waste at one critical point in the chain and it can do so while helping people who may struggle to afford nutritious food.

Back at Jubilee Market, Owino's decision is still a simple one. He sees fruit that may not survive another few days and instead of waiting for it to rot, he gives it another destination. Opiyo sees the same process as a way of keeping waste away from the market environment.

Anyango sees an opportunity to help people while reducing the waste that has long accumulated around the market. Their actions may appear small against the scale of global food loss and waste.

But solutions to large environmental problems often begin with such ordinary decisions. A trader decides not to throw away a bag of edible fruit.

A rescue champion gathers surplus from several stalls. A beneficiary arrives with crates. A child receives a meal containing food that could otherwise have ended up in a dumpsite.

The environmental benefit follows quietly behind each of those decisions. Less food enters the waste stream and fewer resources used to produce that food are wasted.

For Kisumu, the next challenge is to turn these scattered acts of responsibility into a dependable city-wide system.

It means recognising that environmental protection does not always begin with a large recycling plant or a major clean-up exercise.