Food rescue teams ensure Kiwi don’t go hungry - but need help too.
They are unsung heroes – the teams behind a vital service passing on unsold food to people struggling to make ends meet and which may otherwise have been thrown in the bin.
Now Woolworths is running a “Round Up” campaign, giving customers the opportunity to support food rescue organisations who depend on donations to carry out their crucial work. For two weeks from May 20, customers can choose to round up their shopping total to the nearest dollar, with the difference going to food rescue organisations across New Zealand.
Those Round Up donations will top up the cash grants that Woolworths makes to its food rescue partners. Already this financial year it has donated around $2m to help food rescue and hunger relief organisations with running costs and buying vehicles or equipment. That’s on top of the approximately 3000 tonnes (or $3m dollars’ worth) of food on average per year that rescue organisations collect from Woolworths supermarkets.
Throughout the country, dozens of food rescue organisations work tirelessly to collect surplus products – including perishables – from supermarkets and businesses, speedily sort them and send to food banks and other charities to reach people who might otherwise go hungry.
Satisfy Food Rescue – based in Kaiapoi, North Canterbury – is one. While many of the people working for it are volunteers, it also has employees to pay and operational expenses to meet, such as the cost of the EV vans they use to collect the food.
“We rely heavily on funding to do what we do, so every bit helps,” says Satisfy’s manager, Stef Van Meer. “We’ve been going for almost nine years and, when we started out, we were operating with just volunteers. But there has proved to be a real need for food rescue and things have grown very quickly over the years and now we have nine employees, such as our all-important van drivers and an operations team who keep things running smoothly.”
Satisfy collects unsold food from 16 supermarkets across northern Christchurch and the Waimakariri and Hurunui districts – which is then donated to recipient organisations. It has rescued nearly 1.3m kg of food since it launched – the equivalent of around 3.6m meals.
It distributed 42,000kg of food in March alone. The items not only go to food banks but to school breakfast clubs and community groups that run initiatives like lunches for socially isolated people.
“We hear back from organisations we work with who tell us about the difference the food makes to people,” says Van Meer. “For example, teachers say that giving children cereal and toast in the morning keeps them focused. It’s easier to learn when you’re not hungry. We know that one in five children in New Zealand goes to school hungry because of food insecurity – and that’s criminal when one third of food in this country is wasted.
“We’re also hearing that the demographics of people going to food banks for help is changing. They are now seeing a wider range of people accessing their services, including more working families.
Satisfy sends vans out to its partners, including Woolworths, every weekday to collect food the stores have earmarked as suitable for rescue. This includes perishables such as meat and dairy products just about to hit their ‘use by’ or ‘best before’ date – but which can be frozen before they are not fit for human consumption. They also take fruit and vegetables removed from the shelves because they’re no longer good enough to sell but are still edible.
“We can get these into food parcels, along with tinned food and staples like rice and pasta, which makes the parcels more balanced and nutritious and gives people the protein and vegetables they need,” points out Van Meer.
When the food arrives at Satisfy’s Kaiapoi warehouse, a team of volunteers works swiftly and efficiently to sort, grade and package it and then get it out to organisations that distribute it.
“We can turn it around fast, so that the food gets out to people who need it quickly and while it is still edible.”
Satisfy’s skills and experience proved invaluable last year when Canterbury’s largest food rescue charity, Foodbank Canterbury, closed just three days before Christmas due to rising costs. The organisations it supplied food to feared they wouldn’t be able to feed people over the festive season – until Woolworths stepped in, funding Satisfy and fellow Canterbury food rescue charity Kairos to collect and distribute the food instead.
“We needed to get food from 13 stores, so we collaborated with Kairos – they took on seven, we took on six – and thanks to the financial assistance from Woolworths, we were able to do it,” says Van Meer. “It was great to know the food didn’t go to waste.”
Woolworths aims to have all food waste from its operations diverted from landfill by 2025, starting with its supermarkets. This goal not only benefits those who need food but the environment; food buried in landfill can release harmful greenhouse gases.
It’s incredibly rewarding to be a part of the food rescue process, says Van Meer, who has worked for Satisfy for seven years.
“I really love my job. All of us at Satisfy are so passionate about being able to make a difference to our communities, and to the environment. And we’re really grateful to Woolworths, who act so responsibly to get food to where it is needed and help us to do what we do.”
For more information: woolworths.co.nz