ROBYN Langlands, a women’s refuge volunteer said: don’t throw food away!
She was inspired when fast food retailer Wishbone offered the charity its prepared, but unsold, food. Langlands picked the food up, but she found that often supply exceeded demand. So she started supplying the Wellington City Mission. And wondered how much other food was being wasted.
Now that little start has developed into a thriving food rescue, modelled on ones in Sydney and New York, which rescue literally tonnes of food.
Nearly a tonne of prepared food, once chucked out, was redistributed to charities in November via the Kaibosh Food Rescue charity.
That’s 820kg in one month - 205kg in a week: or the equivalent of 410 packets of butter. And it’s coming from only six suppliers.
November was the most successful month of Kaibosh Food Rescue, which now has five trustees, a treasurer, an office space, and one part time operations manager. That month it received $25,000 from the Ministry of Social Development’s Community Response fund, $2100 from the Nikau Foundation and $5000 from COGS. It’s also got 25 volunteers, up from four in March. And last month was the biggest rescue yet, with a total of 805kg of food picked up, and dropped off at six different charities in the city.
In April, some months after the charity began, it collected just 167kg.
Langlands said Kaibosh Food Rescue now has the infrastructure to expand and will be seeking corporate sponsorship as well as more suppliers in months to come.
“Our vision is that no food good enough to eat in Wellington is thrown away. When we tell people in the community about what we’re doing most people say: that’s a good idea. Isn’t it happening already?”
Well, now it is – but only because of Robyn Langlands and her husband George.