Food, food, glorious food. We all love it and we all indulge in it. Living in a country like Australia means that we are fortunate to have access to an abundance of food. But did you know:
- Approximately 8 to 10 billion dollars of food is wasted each year in commercial and residential waste. That’s around four million tonnes of food that ends up as landfill.
- Roughly one third of the food produced in the world for human consumption every year — approximately 1.3 billion tonnes — gets lost or wasted.
- Australians throw out one out of every five shopping bags, which equates to every Australian household throwing out $1,036 worth of groceries each year.
- Australia produces enough food to feed approx. 60 million people, yet two million people still rely on food relief every year
- Nearly one million Aussie kids go without breakfast or bed without dinner
*Food waste facts from OzHarvest
These are just some of the starting facts about food wastage in Australia and in the world.
OzHarvest is the first perishable food rescue organisation in Australia collecting quality excess food from commercial outlets and delivering it, direct and free of charge, to 800 charities providing much needed assistance to vulnerable men, women and children across Sydney, Adelaide, Brisbane, Canberra, Gold Coast, Melbourne, Newcastle and Perth.
I recently participated in a culinary trivia night to raise money for Oz Harvest Canberra to buy a second yellow that will allow them to expand what they’re doing in the Canberra community.
I’m proud to say that I contributed to raising funds to help OzHarvest continue their amazing work. I’ll update you with the amount raised when I know!
But I don’t want my contributions to stop there. As a food lover and someone who is also passionate about making a positive impact on the world and a range of social issues (I’ve volunteered for PANDSI, Amnesty International and donated to YWCA Frugal Feast and often make donations or participate in charity events) I’m going to continue to support this great initiative and will be signing up as a volunteer. Getting involved with an organisation like OzHarvest has been on my ‘to do’ list for a while now and I can’t wait to get started soon!
OzHarvest host Cooking for a Cause (C4AC) events where corporate teams cook loads of beautiful rescued food which is delivered to local charities.
If you want to get involved and contribute to the good work being done by the OzHarvest Canberra team then you can DONATE FOOD, DONATE MONEY or DONATE TIME. A little giving, in whatever way you can spare, really does go along way.
Amelia Bidgood
Amelia is the Founder and Editor of Eat Canberra and the Founder and Managing Director of Eat Canberra Food Tours. She's a qualified journalist, presenter, freelance writer and also runs a boutique communications agency working with small business owners on all things social media, content creation and marketing. She's taught cheesemaking classes, judged hospitality and tourism awards, completed the WSET Level 1 Award In Wines, loves to cook and has travelled to 23 countries. She's also passionate about mental health and has recently started studying to become a Counsellor.