Graze Market is a surplus food market and cafe that aims to fight food waste while making affordable food accessible to all and has gone further to help the low-income community with nutrition programmes for children and entrepreneurial assistance for small businesses.
Graze Market is one of the winners of the Star Golden Hearts Award 2023, an annual award by The Star and Yayasan Gamuda that recognises selfless Malaysian unsung heroes who make a positive impact on society and promote unity among the people.
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Graze Market is one of the winners of the Star Golden Hearts Award 2023, an annual award by The Star and Yayasan Gamuda that recognises selfless Malaysian unsung heroes who make a positive impact on society and promote unity among the people.
For more SGHA videos, visit https://www.sgha.com.my/
WATCH MORE: https://thestartv.com/c/news
SUBSCRIBE: https://cutt.ly/TheStar
LIKE: https://fb.com/TheStarOnline
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NewsTranscript
00:00 Hi, I'm Clara Wan.
00:01 Hi, I'm Shirley Chan.
00:02 We are from Grace Market.
00:04 We are the winner of the Star Golden Hearts Award 2023.
00:09 Thank you for helping us to fight food waste in Malaysia
00:12 and to make food affordable for everyone.
00:14 I started Grace Market when I saw the amount of food being thrown away,
00:26 mostly because of its imperfections and external issues,
00:31 which doesn't affect the quality or the taste of the product.
00:34 At the same time, I was working a lot with the low-income earners
00:37 and I saw how little they have to eat.
00:39 So I decided that I have to do something about this
00:41 and bridging the gap between these two.
00:44 And that's where I started Grace Market to solve this issue.
00:47 So at Grace Market, we hope that we can provide affordable food
00:51 that are good, premium and healthy for the public in general.
00:57 The items in our market include imperfect veggies.
01:00 In the farm, they actually segregate these vegetables.
01:04 So the grade A's will go into your premium supermarkets,
01:06 but your grade B and grade C's usually get rejected,
01:10 which are odd-shaped.
01:11 It could be a sizing problem, too small or too big,
01:14 banded cucumber.
01:16 It could be a colour issue, scarring issue or bruising,
01:19 which means they try and sell for lower
01:21 or if it's not sold, they get thrown away.
01:23 So having to throw them away, it's like losing 30% of your income every day.
01:27 So what we do then is we talk to the farmers
01:30 and then we will buy it from them at a discounted rate
01:33 and we will clean it up, make it look good again
01:35 and then we will sell it at a discount as well to the public.
01:38 Anything that doesn't look good anymore, we will compost them.
01:43 So we will just throw it and then it enters into the ground
01:46 and it goes back to the farmers.
01:50 Then we move on to carrying other people's products
01:53 that are nearing their best-before dates or expiry.
01:57 Or it could also be labelling or packaging issues,
02:00 but the food is still good and edible.
02:03 And then we also have frozen items, such as our frozen berries,
02:06 which is a huge hit.
02:07 And we also have ice creams, yoghurts.
02:10 And recently, we also worked with a croissant company.
02:13 So we are bringing those in as frozen pastries as well
02:17 that customers can buy.
02:19 We give food a second chance.
02:22 At the beginning of the business, we tried very hard to sell to customers.
02:25 We see that the awareness is still not there.
02:28 Customers are still complaining about the veggies,
02:31 why it looks so wilted and it's not fresh and things like that.
02:35 And it's scarring issues, bruises and all.
02:36 So we have an idea to maybe process or cook it
02:40 so people can try the surplus veggies.
02:43 It's still good to eat, it's still edible and it's so yummy.
02:46 That's why we have a chance to collaborate with the owner of this shop.
02:50 We just started this Grease Eatery earlier this year.
02:53 Everything is good, and then people sometimes
02:55 when you walk in and we tell them this is the so-called rejected food
02:58 and they can't even tell.
02:59 They say, "What's wrong with this? This croissant still looks no good."
03:03 And then when you tell them that it's the measurement problem,
03:06 it's a bit too small or out of shape,
03:08 and it's like, "Oh, it's yummy anyway."
03:10 We want to definitely grow our products
03:13 because this will definitely help with the food loss and food waste problem
03:16 by extending the shelf life and processing them.
03:18 So we make our own sambal hijau using green chilli padi,
03:22 excess of that.
03:23 And then we also have our steamboat chilli, which is super spicy.
03:26 And we also make jams using the frozen food.
03:30 But our bestseller is our pesto sauce.
03:34 This is our bestseller.
03:35 It's like the best in the world.
03:41 When we started off, we always had the poor in mind.
03:45 So during the pandemic, we worked with corporates, foundations
03:49 who will sponsor these veggie boxes.
03:51 And what we do is that we will pack them and distribute them
03:54 to basically anyone who needs food.
03:57 So from the food aid distribution,
04:00 we interacted with a lot of the people on ground.
04:02 And then they came to us and said that,
04:04 "You know, I need help to start my business."
04:07 And that's where we saw the need to support them,
04:10 even though it's not our main area of business.
04:12 But we felt like there's a need
04:14 because we don't want to just give up food aid all the time.
04:17 We want to give them a hand up to be able to sustain themselves.
04:20 So then we approached a foundation
04:23 who generously sponsored the program,
04:26 where we brought in women who are already running their F&B businesses.
04:31 We provide them with funds for a period of about six to eight months
04:35 to help them start off and grow their business.
04:38 Not only that, we provide business mentoring
04:41 and we also support them with food stipends
04:44 so that they do not have to worry about providing for their family
04:48 during this time, but they can just do their best in growing their business.
04:52 I met Clara Sherry when we were doing a nutrition program
04:58 for low-to-middle-aged children.
05:02 We took in pregnant mothers to three-year-olds.
05:06 We taught them about the various vegetables.
05:09 From there, their diet was organized.
05:12 They never ate vegetables,
05:14 they never ate chicken breasts,
05:16 they never ate chicken breasts.
05:17 When the third-year-old joined the nutrition program,
05:20 their weight and height increased,
05:24 and their body fat also increased.
05:26 The majority of them did not eat chicken breasts,
05:27 but when they joined the program,
05:29 they liked it.
05:31 It's healthier.
05:32 The feedback from the families who joined is very rewarding
05:36 and very proud.
05:38 I would like to thank Clara and Sherry
05:41 for helping a lot in the nutrition program.
05:44 The models there are very helpful.
05:46 From a small stall, we sold on the side of the road.
05:49 Now, we have two shops.
05:51 I really believe in this idea
06:00 because from my daily life,
06:02 you don't waste your food,
06:02 you just finish whatever is on your plate.
06:04 But this one is like,
06:05 you are doing something to educate people as well.
06:08 Nobody is actually closing the loop,
06:10 it's not a circular economy yet.
06:12 But I think whatever we are trying to do here,
06:15 we are trying to close the loop.
06:16 From surplus to processing,
06:19 extending the shelf life,
06:20 back to composting and back to the farmer.
06:22 We are trying our very best.
06:24 We are wasting food on one hand,
06:26 and so many people go to bed hungry.
06:28 And I felt that was a bit unfair.
06:30 It's not right and the system is just broken.
06:33 And this is just my mini solution to the bigger problem.
06:36 It takes a lot of people and stakeholders
06:39 to be part of solving this food loss issue.
06:41 I do what I can.
06:43 And my mum always says, "Don't waste food."
06:47 You know, everything is good, don't waste, keep and eat.
06:49 We don't waste in general.
06:51 That's what I'm trying to do.
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