Presbyterian Support Northern foodbank coordinator Miles Ostick receives some of the 5000 fruit and vegetable boxes being handed out to struggling families each week. Photo / Supplied
Presbyterian Support Northern foodbank coordinator Miles Ostick receives some of the 5000 fruit and vegetable boxes being handed out to struggling families each week. Photo / Supplied
A charitable trust delivering fruit to kids at low-decile schools started using the funds to provide 5000 fruit and vegetables boxes to desperate communities when schools closed five weeks ago.
But United Fresh, the fresh produce industry body that runs the 5+ A Day Charitable Trust, has received such strong demand for the produce that it is now calling on the Government to fund a further 10,000 boxes at a cost of $350,000 a week.
The produce boxes containing a mix of seasonal fruit and vegetables have a retail value of about $50. Photo / Supplied
The group will go back to supplying schools when they reopen - leaving many families with nothing to put on their tables.
United Fresh president Jerry Prendergast said when the country went into lockdown and they couldn't get the fruit to the children or their families, they contacted foodbanks, marae, city missions, Fair Food NZ and Kiwi Harvest to give the produce boxes to families who needed them most.
"All of these organisations came back with tremendous feedback. Most of it was we are not used to having fresh fruit and vegetables. We are used to having people supplying us with very good canned products, dried goods, even frozen products but we are not used to receiving fresh fruit and vegetables and the difference that it made for those communities in our eyes was overwhelming."
Fair Food NZ board member Heather Tribe unpacking some of the produce boxes from United Fresh. Photo / Supplied
The charity quickly realised how much demand there was for the boxes and quickly calculated they had the capabilities to triple their production line.
"As we go into this next phase it is very evident there are a number of families in need and we think that if we are giving them fresh fruit and vegetables it goes along way to feed your family, it provides the nutritional requirements your family need, it works out extremely good value in terms of getting seasonal produce and each box has a range of produce in it."
Each box containing a mix of seasonal fruit and vegetables had a retail value of about $50.
Along with helping desperate families feeling the pinch during Covid-19, the initiative was also using surplus produce no longer needed by the hospitality industry.
"If you think about the additional produce that was being grown for hospitality alone, for growers they haven't got a home for that product ... For a grower it is a great way for them to get their excess seasonal produce to families in need."
Once schools re-opened, Prendergast said they would go back to delivering the fresh fruit to 553 schools across New Zealand as part of the Ministry of Health's Fruit and Vegetables in Schools initiative aimed at providing school children a different piece of fruit or vegetable.
Additional government funding would enable United Fresh to keep providing 10,000 produce boxes to the communities.
FairFood NZ general manager Justine Knowles said when coronavirus first hit and the country went into lockdown the organisation had less food to rescue from companies such as Countdown who were running out of stock, but there was a huge surge in demand.
Some organisations went from giving out very few food parcels a week to 1100.
The fresh fruit and vege boxes from United Fresh meant FairFood NZ was able to keep providing the 50 organisations it worked with such as foodbanks and the Salvation Army with these items.
Knowles said the feedback they were getting from the charities was that as unemployment rose, the demand was likely to remain strong for some time.
United Fresh has put the funding request to the Ministry of Health, Ministry for Primary Industries, Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment and the National Emergency Management Agency and could provide the produce boxes as soon as funding was approved.
A Ministry of Health spokesperson said it had been great to see community organisations respond to real needs during Covid-19 and getting fruit to where it was needed most.
