It is appalling to learn how much food New Zealand wastes. Thank goodness for kind hearts; the food rescuers.
With the lead up to the festive season Food Bank volunteers around New Zealand will be run off their feet packing and availing emergency food supplies; child poverty continues to make headlines; and City Missions will be preparing for hundreds of homeless guests.
Is food waste a problem in New Zealand? Keep reading. I will let you make up your own mind.
Each New Zealand household wastes on average $560 worth of food each year.
That’s 122,547 tonnes of food annually; enough to feed 262,917 people.
$872 million a year spent on food that will be thrown away uneaten.
7.3% of New Zealand faces food insecurity.
Why do we waste food? At a household level unfortunately this is often subconscious and put down to bad planning.
30-40% of all food produced is wasted (1.3 billion tonnes, globally), destined for landfill. 30% of landfill is organic!
It’s not just the public that waste food.
Dated stock, blemished fruit and vegetables, short-life bakery and unsold convenience foods are regularly dumped. In France a new regulation has seen the banning of food wastage in supermarkets and have barred them from deliberately spoiling unsold food so it cannot be eaten. Instead food must be donated to charity or for animal feed. This is not a current requirement in New Zealand.
Introducing Kaibosh, the food rescuers:
Working seven days a week in Wellington and the Hutt Valley, Kaibosh rescues over 10,000kg of quality surplus food each month, providing it free of charge to community groups supporting people in need. The rescued food is equivalent to 28,500 meals and, to date, Kaibosh has collected, sorted, packed and delivered more than 1,000,000 meals in the Greater Wellington district alone since its inception in 2008.
The cycle starts with local businesses offering up excess or food waste destined for landfill. Wellington local businesses include Countdown, Wishbone, numerous cafes, food distributors, markets and sandwich stalls. Kaibosh collects the food, sorts, repacks and redistributes to charity groups. This strategy to support charity groups means food is one of a long list of services offered to their clients which include: Women’s Refuge, Night Shelters, Salvation Army, Food Banks, Soup Kitchens and the like.
By bringing together 36 community groups, 30 regular food donors and over 85 dedicated volunteers, Kaibosh connects rescued food with those who need it most.
Of the food rescued, more than half is fresh produce. Prepared foods that must be eaten same day are distributed promptly to shelters etc. Long shelf life items may include tinned foods with dings, frozen foods and non-alcoholic beverages. Even the non-salvageable waste (which only accounts for 12%) will go to a good cause: Kai to Compost, a council initiative.
Kaibosh is New Zealand’s first and most well-established food rescue organisation. The first of their kind on this grand scale, other regions are represented by similar not-for-profit groups around New Zealand.
What an amazing initiative. Let’s see every region represented please New Zealand!
