An innovative collaboration putting healthy food on empty plates in NSW

With sustainability high on the agenda for a lot of Australian businesses, there is now a concerted push not only for shared responsibility on the redistribution of food, but to create the conditions so that businesses can participate in market-positive driven outcomes.

But what will it take to build responsible prosperity throughout Australia?

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Leaders in the food rescue and redistribution industry argue that greater collaboration is needed between business, local government and community. Secondbite’s ambitious call-to-action is to seed new conversations and collective approaches to address the critical societal issue of food insecurity through its ‘Meals that Matter’ initiative.

‘Meals that Matter’ is an innovative collaboration between Secondbite and Our Big Kitchen (OBK) – which brings together the business community, the NSW State Government and Secondbite’s community food program partners to put healthy food on empty plates throughout NSW.

The program sees corporate teams cooking meals using fresh food rescued by SecondBite at OBK in Bondi under the guidance of OBK staff and volunteers. Coles Liquor’s, Nick Mavraganis says it’s a wonderful expansion of corporate social responsibility and team building programs, which sees employees come away engaged and reflective.

“[It’s a] very humbling experience and a great opportunity to bond with work colleagues,” said Mr Mavraganis.

Since its inception in 2015, Secondbite’s program has seen Australian employees deliver close to 3000 meals to vulnerable people who can’t always access enough nutritionally adequate food for an active, healthy life.

The collective approach to ‘recycling’ makes a positive impact due to its community grassroots approach – helping change the way people view and understand food waste by engaging their environmental consciousness. By making nutritious, healthy meals directly from fresh food ‘waste’, consumers can now see how the food they used to throw away can be reused.

“I hate to see waste, and seeing the volume of good fresh food making its way to landfill when so many Australian families go hungry means that there is a place for Secondbite addressing this big challenge,” said Bob Glindemann, Navy Health.

Over the next 10 years Secondbite wishes to continue to work ‘collaboratively, genuinely and respectfully’ towards improved access to fresh nutritious food for all Australians, and less waste. NSW State Operations Manager, Neridah Llewellyn says “we’re also looking at replicating ‘Meals that Matter’ in other cities across Australia”, as well as expanding Direct Delivery operations into the Illawarra in the coming months.

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For more information or to get involved in Secondbite’s ‘Meals that Matter’ program call (02) 9316 9200 or email [email protected].