As the hospitality industry becomes more and more aware of the environmental impacts of food waste, businesses are coming up with new solutions to reduce the amount of unused produce and uneaten food they send to landfill. One organisation that is not only committed to fighting food waste but also alleviating hunger is OzHarvest. Founded by Ronni Kahn, who previously ran an event management business, OzHarvest is a national food-rescue organisation that collects quality food from commercial food vendors and distributes it to charities supporting people in need.
The organisation operates nationwide to rescuemore than 180 tonnes of food each week from over 3,500 donors, such as supermarkets, hotels, cafes and caterers. More broadly, around seven million tonnes of food in Australia ends up in landfill each year: enough to fill 9,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools. At the same time, more than five million Australians experience food insecurity each year, meaning they don’t have adequate access to food.
OzHarvest also runs educational programs to create positive change in the lives of vulnerable people, however, since COVID-19, the organisation’s main focus has been food relief. “The demand for our services is higher than ever and our resources are really under pressure,” says Fiona Nearn, who is the PR, Media and Communications Manager at OzHarvest.
Bunzl recently made a generous $50,000 donation to OzHarvest, which Nearn describes as essential to the organisation’s operations. “We completely rely on philanthropic funding to help keep our wheels going, and for every dollar donated to us, we can donate two
meals to people in need. Bunzl’s donation meant we could deliver an extra 100,000 meals,” she says. Hospitality businesses can donate surplus food to OzHarvest on a regular basis or organise a one-off donation.
For more details, visit ozharvest. org/give-a-little-love.
