In the late 1980s, Bertha Mjawa remembers seeing endless quantities of fruits and vegetables getting thrown out across Tanzania because rot or insects had gotten to them. Mangoes and tomatoes, sweet potatoes and cassava—staples in many Tanzanian homes—were going bad before they even reached consumers. It was a normal sight, but it saddened Mjawa, who had a background in nutrition and hated to see precious calories and nutrients going to waste.
Read the rest of Special Reporting Initiative Fellow Rachel Cernansky’s piece on food waste in Sub-Saharan Africa.