Deborah Manning, founded KiwiHarvest Food Rescue in 2012 to combat food waste and help feed families in need. Since then, KiwiHarvest has rescued and distributed over 13 million kilograms of food to 220 charitable organisations across New Zealand. Recently Deborah Manning was honoured on the King's Birthday Honours List. Reflecting on this recognition, she shared:
“This award is a shared achievement. It recognises all the amazing food rescue organisations, volunteers, and champions across the country who work tirelessly to reduce food waste and hunger."
feed more - Nourishing communities SINCE 2012
Over 27% of Kiwi children live in households where food runs out sometimes or often.
Food is so often the starting point for social agencies working with their clients to break the cycle of need. Having KiwiHarvest deliver rescued food allows these agencies to concentrate on tackling their core issues, and re-focus their funding on programmes to help their clients.
The high quality, fresh food we provide offers more nutrition than the canned and dry goods that charities have traditionally been able to access, filling a gap for so many who are struggling to feed themselves and their families.
14,042,413
Kilos of food rescued
220
Recipient charities currently supported
37,212,395
CO2eq prevented from entering the atmosphere
KIWIHARVEST RESCUES about 200,000 KGS OF GOOD QUALITY SURPLUS FOOD EVERY MONTH, AND DIVERTS THIS BACK TO PEOPLE WHO ARE STRUGGLING ACROSS NEW ZEALAND.
waste less - Food rescue
New Zealand industry generates more than 103,000 tonnes of food waste per year, and it is estimated that 60% of food going to landfill is edible. Burying food (and often its packaging) in landfill is an environmental disaster.
Not only does it needlessly contribute to greenhouse gas emissions, wasting food also means squandering the resources used to produce and transport that food, including water, land, energy, labour, and capital.
We work with food businesses, including supermarkets, wholesalers, producers, cafes, restaurants, and hotels, to rescue the good food that they are not able to sell – whether that is because of oversupply, damaged packaging, cancelled orders, mislabelling, or because the food is nearing its best before date or end of life.
food waste
Food waste is a major environmental concern not just here in Aotearoa, but all around the world - fuelled by our food and hospitality industries, and the food that goes to waste in our very own homes.
Annually, New Zealand wastes enough good food to feed the entire population of Dunedin or Northland (approximately 150,000 people) for an entire year. That’s the equivalent of $1.17 billion worth of food.
“New Zealand households are throwing away 12.2 percent of the food they buy, a staggering $1510 of food being thrown out per household each year.”
Rabobank-KiwiHarvest Food Waste Survey , 2023
food security
Our mission at KiwiHarvest is to help Aotearoa’s population become 100% food secure, ensuring every man, woman and child has access to enough good, nutritious food each and every day.
The current cost of living crisis has hit many Kiwi families very hard, with food prices continuing to climb. The demand for food support has never been higher, but with our rescued and donated food KiwiHarvest is working hard to help as many Kiwi families as we can.
“IT HAS BEEN SHOWN THAT FOR EVERY $1 COMPANIES HAVE INVESTED TO REDUCE FOOD LOSS AND WASTE, THEY SAVED $14 IN OPERATING COSTS.”
FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva
Awards
Advocacy
We work hard advocating to central and local government, for changes to our national strategies, regulations and bylaws that will ensure food waste and food security is addressed. This includes our support of the Food Waste Champions 12.3, and their target to halve food waste by 2030.
ENGAGEMENT & Education
We welcome any opportunity to engage with business, community and charity organisations and spread the word about food rescue and food security in Aotearoa - and we now have a new, purpose-built education trailer to help draw attention to our cause. If you’d like to speak with our team about organising an event (either live or virtual), please get in touch.
Our goal is to build awareness and understanding of ways that we can use and cook food to minimise (or totally avoid) waste - as well as build respect for the food we buy, and the time, effort, and resources that go into its production.
our family
Meet the team behind KiwiHarvest