The Food Waste Hackathon was a national programme to tackle food waste in Jordan. Running from 2023 to 2025, it brought together researchers and entrepreneurs from different backgrounds, including academia, to measure food waste accurately and to design practical, market-based solutions for reducing it.
The programme was implemented by Cewas in partnership with the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), under the Ministry of Agriculture's "No to Food Waste" initiative and in collaboration with the Department of Statistics.
The hackathon guided a cohort of aspiring entrepreneurs through training, coaching, and piloting to turn early ideas into revenue generating businesses. Two start-up teams advanced to pilot their solutions in the market. The first converts food waste into black soldier fly larvae protein for animal feed. The second is a web platform that redistributes near-expiry food, putting surplus stock back into use before it is wasted.
Alongside the hackathon, the research part focused on measuring how much food Jordan actually wastes. Cewas supported research teams to develop measurement tools and produce three national studies covering households, restaurants and hotels, and hospitals. All the methodologies formed a foundational evidence base.