OzHarvest was founded by Ronni Kahn AO in 2004, after noticing the huge volume of food going to waste from her events business. With one van in Sydney, she started to fix a problem with a simple solution, rescuing food and delivering it to local charities.

OzHarvest is now Australia’s leading food rescue organisation on a mission to ‘Nourish our Country’ by stopping good food from going to waste and delivering it to charities that help feed people in need.  Over 250 million meals have been delivered to Vulnerable Australians to date.

OzHarvest’s iconic yellow vans are out and about in communities every day, collecting quality surplus food from a network of donors, including supermarkets, cafes, delis, restaurants, corporate kitchens, airlines, hotels, and other food businesses. This food is delivered directly to charities that help feed people in need across the nation, free of charge.

OzHarvest hopes to create positive change and inspire others to help reach the national target of halving food waste by 2030 through education programs and advocacy work.

All surplus food from Fine Food Australia is being diverted from landfill and donated to OzHarvest.  Food going into landfill is a huge contributor to dangerous greenhouse gas emissions, with 10% of all emissions impacting climate change coming from food waste.

The Current need

 

Australia, our so called ‘lucky’ country is now in a food crisis.  OzHarvest’s latest Community Needs Survey results revealed the need for food relief continues at an all-time high and charities are struggling to cope with the ongoing demand.  This is quite concerning news about the hidden issue of food insecurity in Australia.

In the last six months:

• 75% of charities reported an increase in demand for food.
• 30% of people are seeking help for the first time.
• 67% cannot meet current demand—a 20% increase in the last year.
• The vast majority could take up to 50% more food to meet demand.

Charities are doing their best, feeding 57% more people each month (an average of 352 people a month).  Despite their efforts, at least 30,000 Australians are going without food each month, and many more do not ask for help. Housing affordability and grocery prices are the clear drivers of food insecurity, with families and the homeless being the biggest cohorts supported right now.

Fine Food Australia is proud to support OzHarvest in ‘Nourishing Our Country’.  Fine Food visitors have an option to donate $5 when registering for this year’s event.  Every $1 donated to OzHarvest is 2 meals delivered to an Australian in need.  That means event attendees can help deliver 10 meals to Vulnerable Australians, significant impact!

You can keep OzHarvest’s wheels turning by donating here:  OzHarvest – Fine Food Australia

 

Use It Up

 

Every year, 2.5 million tonnes of food is wasted from Australian homes.  Household food waste is mostly avoidable and is the most powerful solution to combat climate change from our own home.   OzHarvest and BehviourWorks Australia researched the most important behaviour to reduce food waste in the home.  The results found the most impactful response is to simply ‘Use it Up’ by remembering to use up food we already have rather than buying more.  This is how OzHarvest’s innovative ‘Use It Up’ tape was born.  It is very simple to use, labelling food that needs to be used up first.  This can be in your fried where you can create a ‘Use It Up’ shelf or on the food itself.   Research has shown, households that have ‘Use It Up’ tape have reduced household food waste by over 40%.

The ‘Use It Up’ tape is free of charge to order from the OzHarvest website or you can collect your tape for free at Fine Food Australia.  Save food, save money, save the planet!

 

OzHarvest Cooking For a Cause

 

Book your team in to Cook For a Cause!  This is a corporate engagement program where teams learn zero-waste cooking skills, while transforming rescued ingredients into gourmet meals to support vulnerable communities.  Sessions are run around the country.  In Melbourne you can book the OzHarvest kitchen in Port Melbourne or at Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre.  More information can be found on the OzHarvest website.

OzHarvest Ventures

OzHarvest Ventures is a new arm of the business where products for purpose are being created with the intent of providing sustainable funding of food relief for people in need via OzHarvest. Through collaborating with other social enterprises and small businesses, including First Nations-owned businesses.

 

At Fine Food Australia, you can sample OzHarvest’s Conscious Drink, a lightly sparkling and deliciously refreshing zero-alcohol wine alternative, crafted in collaboration with zero-alc drinks specialist ALTD and Kakadu Kitchen. Using rescued blueberries and native botanicals that have been ethically sourced via Indigenous businesses.  Every bottle sold provides two meals for people in need via OzHarvest, and every case sold promises the planting of a native edible seedling in the Northern Territory.

OzHarvest’s LemonAid comes in two flavour variants of classic lemonade and lemonade with a rescued ginger twist, and every can sold enables a meal delivered to a person in need.

 

Other ways to support OzHarvest

 

Australians are struggling now more than ever! You can support OzHarvest by:

 

• Workplace Giving.  For just $10 per month, you can give someone in need the equivalent of your daily workday lunches.  Bonus is this is tax deductible!
• Run your own fundraiser.  Get active and sign up for a challenge or run a sausage sizzle to raise valuable funds for our food rescue operations.  Or even run
• Signing up as a volunteer.  OzHarvest couldn’t operate or achieve the impact they do without the countless hours donated by their Yellow Army of Volunteers.  Check out their website for more info.

 

For more information, check out OzHarvest.org