Reducing food waste – OzHarvest

OzHarvest is a non-denominational charity that rescues excess food which would otherwise be discarded. This excess food is distributed to charities supporting the vulnerable in Sydney, Canberra and recently started up in Adelaide. It is estimated that 3.28 million tonnes of food is driven to landfill in Australia each year. This significantly contributes to landfill and represents a massive waste of resources. For instance  dumping a kilo of beef wastes the 50,000 litres of water it took to produce that meat or throwing out a kilo of white rice will waste 2,385 litres.

OzHarvest was founded in November 2004 with one van and delivered 4000 meals in our first month of operations. Currently OzHarvest delivers 100, 000 meals per month with a fleet of six vans. Food is generously donated by restaurants, markets, food caterers etc with excess. By distributing this to those in need, OzHarvest turns excess food into a resource  and save thousands of kilograms of food from being dumped as landfill each year.