Two problems that should never exist together
In Mexico, where a third of all food is discarded while one in five citizens goes hungry, a company called Cheaf has chosen provocation over statistics as its instrument of conscience. Born from a WhatsApp group five years ago, Cheaf discovered that data alone could not move people — but a well-placed cultural joke, one that makes you read the sign twice, just might. Their work is both commercial and moral: intercepting surplus food before it reaches the dumpster, while pressing governments and corporations to reckon with the deliberate machinery of waste. It is, at its core, a wager that irreverence can do what earnestness could not.
- Mexico destroys one-third of its food supply while twenty percent of its people go to bed hungry — a coexistence so absurd it demands a response louder than a pie chart.
- Early data-driven campaigns failed to stop anyone mid-scroll, forcing Cheaf to abandon the language of reports and learn the language of the street.
- Campaigns like 'Wey no mermes' weaponize Mexican slang to create a double-take moment — the kind that earns a tag, a share, and an actual thought about food waste.
- Every campaign is stress-tested against outside voices before launch, and more than one beloved idea has been killed because the country's mood would have made the humor land like a wound.
- Beyond marketing, Cheaf is lobbying for legislation that would make food destruction illegal, pointing to France as proof that policy — not just persuasion — can close the gap between surplus and hunger.
Brenda Cárdenas Cuevas describes how Cheaf, a Mexican food surplus platform, had to unlearn its first instinct. In the beginning, the company spoke in statistics — food waste percentages, hunger figures, the problem laid out with precision. Nobody stopped to read it. The numbers, however true, did not move people.
The pivot came through a harder question: what actually makes something stick? The answer was irreverence. Cheaf began borrowing from the living language of Mexican culture — slang, double meanings, the phrases people already carry in their mouths. The campaign 'Wey no mermes' was the proof of concept: at first glance it reads like a common Mexican expletive, but it is also a play on 'merma,' the industry word for food surplus — the very thing Cheaf sells. People stopped. They read it twice. They tagged the brand. A voice had been found.
Current campaigns follow the same logic, using acronyms from Mexican street slang that force a second look. The double-take is the whole mechanism — it is how Cheaf earns the moment of actual thought that a conventional poster never could.
But the company holds a firm internal line. Before any campaign goes public, it passes through outside reviewers who ask whether it mocks suffering, whether it could wound rather than provoke. Campaigns have been killed — good ones, internally loved ones — because someone noted that the country's mood would make the joke land badly. Cleverness without conscience is not the brand.
The deeper ambition runs beneath the marketing. Cheaf is pushing for legislation that would make food destruction illegal, as France has done. In Mexico, no such law exists, and so companies with rigid quality standards pour soap over dumpsters full of cookies rather than allow anyone to salvage them. One in five Mexicans goes to bed hungry. One-third of all food produced is thrown away. Cárdenas holds both facts at once and insists they should not coexist.
The community Cheaf has built does the quieter education: customers post photos of yesterday's bread, spotted bananas, oddly shaped fruit — food rejected not because it is unsafe but because corporate policy has lost touch with reality. A ranking system creates accountability for partner businesses, turning customer complaints into a signal the company investigates. It is a way of saying, to every store and supplier: we are watching, and the food matters.
Brenda Cárdenas Cuevas sits down to talk about how a company born in a WhatsApp group learned to speak in a voice that stops people mid-scroll. Cheaf started five years ago in Mexico with the kind of messaging you'd expect from a food-waste startup: data, statistics, the problem laid bare. It didn't work. People walked past. The numbers didn't move them.
So the team asked themselves a harder question: what makes a campaign stick? The answer came wrapped in irreverence. Cheaf decided to become the brand that makes you uncomfortable, that questions how companies produce, how governments regulate, how we've all agreed to throw away food while people go hungry. They started borrowing from the language people actually use—the slang, the expressions, the phrases that live in culture.
The breakthrough came with a campaign called "Wey no mermes." In Mexico, "merma" is the industry term for food surplus—the exact thing Cheaf sells. But at first glance, the phrase reads like "wey, no mames," a common Mexican expression. The visual trick worked. People stopped. They read it twice. They tagged the brand on social media. The company had found its voice.
The current campaign uses the same playbook. Those acronyms people see on public posters—ALV, HDTPM—they mean something specific in Mexican slang, something that makes you look twice. That double-take is the entire point. It's how Cheaf gets you to actually think about what the poster is saying instead of letting your eyes slide past it.
But there's a line between clever and cruel, between humor that includes and humor that wounds. Before any campaign launches, Cheaf runs it past a group of people outside the company. They ask hard questions: Is this sexist? Does it mock someone's suffering? Could this land wrong? The team has killed campaigns before—good ones, internally beloved ones—because someone pointed out that the country was going through something that would make the joke land like a slap.
The deeper work happens in policy. While Cheaf sells surplus food, the company is also pushing governments to make waste illegal the way France has. In Mexico, there are no such rules. Companies with strict quality standards throw away perfectly good food because their policies say they must. Meanwhile, one in five Mexicans goes to bed hungry. One-third of all food produced in the country ends up in the trash. These two facts should not coexist, Cárdenas says, and yet they do.
She remembers a photo sent by a supermarket manager last month: packages of cookies in a dumpster, soap poured over them so no one could salvage them. The deliberateness of it struck her. The company would rather destroy food than let someone else have it. Cheaf's work is to intercept that moment before it happens—to connect the surplus with the people who need it.
The company uses its community to do the real education. On social media, people post photos of the food they bought through Cheaf—yesterday's bread from the bakery, bananas with brown spots perfect for smoothies, fruit rejected for being the wrong size. These aren't damaged goods. They're the casualties of policies so strict they've lost touch with reality. The ranking system Cheaf built for businesses creates accountability: when a store's rating drops, the team investigates why customers are complaining about quality. It's a way of saying: we're watching, and we're listening.
Notable Quotes
Hunger and food waste are two problems that should not coexist, yet in Mexico they do.— Brenda Cárdenas Cuevas, marketing manager at Cheaf
We focus on reaching the moment before food gets thrown away, not after.— Brenda Cárdenas Cuevas
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
When you first started using this irreverent tone, weren't you worried you'd alienate people who take food waste seriously?
We were worried about the opposite—that people wouldn't take it seriously at all. The data and the statistics weren't moving anyone. We realized that to make someone care about a problem, you first have to make them stop and actually look.
But there's a real risk in making hunger and waste into a joke, even if it's clever. How do you know where that line is?
We don't always know. That's why we test everything with people outside the company first. We've killed campaigns that were funny internally but would have hurt people. The goal isn't to be edgy for its own sake—it's to be memorable about something that matters.
You mentioned the photo of cookies in the dumpster with soap on them. That's the thing that actually haunts you, isn't it?
Yes. That image shows the deliberateness of it. It's not accidental waste. It's a choice to destroy rather than share. That's what we're trying to change—not just by selling the surplus, but by making it impossible for companies to pretend this is normal.
How much of this is about changing individual consumer behavior versus changing the actual systems that create the waste?
Both, but the system change is the real work. We can sell surplus food all day, but if companies can legally throw away perfectly good food, we're just treating the symptom. We're pushing for regulations like they have in France—making it illegal to waste food in good condition. That's the conversation we're trying to force into the public agenda.