"Angie in her former role as head of Tauranga Women's Refuge knows first-hand the difference food can make to people's lives.
"Imagine turning up at a refuge having escaped a terrible situation with your kids and opening the cupboard and finding a tin of dented baked beans.
"With food provided by Good Neighbour, we can fill the cupboards with Ferrero Rocher, and the freezer with meat ... and remember this is food that would have been thrown out."
The sold-out Ladies Long Lunch on November 3 will host 300 paying guests with a five course degustation in a bespoke outdoor marquee at Toi Ohomai Institute of Technology.
The event will be hosted by television star Mary Lambie, with special guests rugby sports star Portia Woodman, and model mum and social media influencer Anna Reeve.
New Zealander of the Year Leisa Renwick will be speaking about her life and death battle to get government funding for melanoma drug Keytruda.
Tauranga's "ladies who lunch" will feast entirely on rescued food. The lunch hopes to raise more than $100,000,
"In a feast like no other ever seen before, seven chefs and a team of 220 students are using rescued food to create a top standard gourmet menu," said Toi Ohomai tutor, celebrity chef Peter Blakeway.
Michelin starred chef Blakeway, who is also the New Zealand ambassador for Heston Blumenthal, has invited fellow chefs from around New Zealand, including Simon Gault and Mike Meredith.
Blakeway said the 300 guests should be prepared for a feast that will delight the senses.
"It has never been done before and we are literally harnessing the creativity of all staff and students.
"Even the carpentry department has made the tables and the cheeseboards. The cheese has been made from scratch from Lewis Road Creamery milk."
The 220 students cooking and serving the meal, including cocktails and a dessert, are being assessed during the event by their tutors as part of their final assessments.
"It's real life for them."
All food for the menu is being collected by Good Neighbour.
The charity has just been given the green light to develop a commercial kitchen on its premises in Burrows St.
Good Neighbour Kitchen, GNK, could be under way in the New Year if building consent is approved, using money raised from the lunch.
Good Neighbour was formed four years ago and is responsible for the Welcome Bay and Bethlehem community gardens, community projects and a highly successful food rescue service.
The food rescue arm, orchestrated by Lavina Good - local philanthropist and owner of New World Brookfield - and John and Jackie Paine, has been rescuing up to 10 tonnes of food every week and distributing it to 55 local charities including Tauranga Food Bank and Women's Refuge.
Thirteen local supermarkets provide the rescued food, 80 per cent of which is perishable, says John Paine, with the 10 tonnes a week roughly equating to food worth about $2.5 million a week.
Good Neighbour, which has a mantra of "No waste, no hunger", also provides food to local early childhood centres.
"There are kids who turn up there hungry. The food means they get something in their stomachs so they can learn and have fun.
"They will cut up a pumpkin for all the kids and send them home with it - so it's about educating the next generation about food sustainability - but most importantly it is about making sure they do not go hungry."
The new kitchen is set to further transform the community, says Good.
"Not only will it further minimise food waste, but brings the charities together. So you might get the likes of Women's Refuge cooking for another charity.
"It is all very well giving kids a pumpkin, but you don't know what happens to that pumpkin when they go home with it. If we give them pumpkin soup, then we know they eat it."
The hundred volunteers for Good Neighbour include people already "on struggle street", said Good.
"We have two guys from the men's homeless shelter come and help unload the food. Imagine that, these guys don't even have a bed of their own, and they are out helping other people."
Volunteers come from all walks of life, said Good, including a crown prosecutor, a former police detective, working alongside kids who have "gone off the tracks".
The Good Neighbour Board has met and approved stage one of GNK, which involved seeking consent before any building took place.
The kitchen will also have an enterprise element, said Good, for example with baristas selling coffee and muffins from rescued ingredients.
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