Black Fern Portia Woodman-Wickliffe tackling food waste

Portia Woodman-Wickliffe is the face of a new campaign to prevent food waste.

Rugby world champion Portia Woodman-Wickliffe is the face of a new campaign to prevent food waste.

New Zealanders are estimated to throw out more than $3 billion worth of food each year, about $1500 per household.

Woodman-Wickliffe (Ngāpuhi), is working alongside food rescue service KiwiHarvest and Hello Fresh to raise awareness to end this.

At the launch the rugby star pushed a scrum machine loaded with 115kg of food, about the average amount of food that’s wasted by households in a year.

“I know it’s a kaupapa that I’m really passionate about, to limit our food waste,” she said.

KiwiHarvest chief executive Angela Calver said the service rescues food before it’s dumped and redistributes it to 225 community groups around New Zealand.

Together, with meal-kit company Hello Fresh, it is showing people affordable and better ways to use food without wasting it, such as by meal planning.

Rugby teams across New Zealand are being encouraged to get involved by raising funds for KiwiHarvest.

The prize for the winning team is a training session with Woodman-Wickliffe and a month’s supply of free meals from HelloFresh for every team member.