After 15 years of working as an events producer, Ronni Kahn had seen enough of good food going to waste.
“All of my events there was food leftover and I knew that if there was food leftover at my events, there was also food leftover at my colleagues’ events around town,” said Ms Kahn.
So in 2004, she decided to act by establishing OzHarvest. The idea was simple: collect leftover food from restaurants and use it to feed hungry people needing a meal.
“I thought, what I knew is there was leftover food and I also know that there are people who are hungry. And so if I could create the missing link between that food and those people it would be a good thing.”
Although initially her motivation was to stop food wastage, later she would learn of the massive impacts leftover food had on the environment.
“We’ve just recently had a study done on our carbon footprint and, yes we’re feeding people which is fantastic, but we saved the equivalent of 1,400 cars from driving on the road. That’s the equivalent of our carbon footprint. It equates to $180,000 in carbon offsets.”
Most of the food provided to OzHarvest comes from corporate boardrooms and caterers.
The food collected from these events is of high quality and untouched. “It’s very important to clarify that we are talking about excess food that is completely fit for eating,” Ms Kahn said.
“We are not talking about people eating half a steak and somebody else eating the rest of that steak. It is the piece of steak that hasn’t been touched, that had been taken out, perhaps been marinated, perhaps intended for use that night, but never got eaten.”
In the last six months, Woolworths and ALDI have agreed to take part in the initiative. This has provided OzHarvest with a more reliable source of high quality food. “Collecting from supermarkets on a daily basis certainly gives us great quality and very good supply that our recipients are really enjoying.”
Earlier this year, Ms Kahn was recognised for her work after she was awarded Australia’s Local Hero.
The award has allowed to her to lift the profile of OzHarvest and has given her the platform to encourage ordinary people to do their part in easing the food wastage problem.
“Perhaps by taking lunch from home once a month and donating $10 to OzHarvest, they would be providing 10 meals for 10 city people in need. How awesome is that? Such a simple way of doing it.”
by Ehssan Veiszadeh
