OzHarvest is Australia’s leading food rescue organisation, with a driving purpose to Nourish Our Country. Founded by Ronni Kahn in 2004, it began with a simple concept to rescue good food that would otherwise go to waste and deliver it to people in need.
Starting in Sydney with one van, OzHarvest now operates nationally and has delivered over 125 million meals and saved 40,000 tonnes of food from landfill.
Each week, OzHarvest rescues over 180 tonnes of quality surplus food from more than 3,700 food donors including supermarkets, restaurants, cafes, hotels, retailers, airports and food outlets. It then delivers directly to more than 1,300 charities that feed vulnerable Australians, who now have access to a wider supply and variety of fresh and cooked food.
OzHarvest runs education programs NEST and Nourish to enhance life skills of vulnerable people, increase connectedness and improve health, nutrition and sustainable living. After a successful pilot, the new curriculum-aligned program for primary school children FEAST is being rolled out.
The OzHarvest Market (Australia’s first rescued food supermarket) opened in Sydney’s Kensington in April 2017. Based on a ‘take what you need, give if you can’ philosophy, it has made rescued food available to all, especially those in need.
After five years raising awareness about global food waste as the official Australian partner of the United Nations Environment, OzHarvest has now launched their first national consumer education program to #fightfoodwaste