Food rescue is helping people and the climate

Globally, food waste contributes 8-10% to climate pollution – around four times more than the entire aviation industry.

Nov 02, 2022

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Volunteers at Fair Food hand-sort rescued produce into boxes that rival My Food Bag.

When I arrive at the Fair Food headquarters in Avondale, general manager Michelle Blau offers me an “upcycled” banana muffin, made with bananas and baking mix that would’ve otherwise ended up in landfill. It’s pretty tasty.

Every day, the food rescue charity picks up at least a tonne of fresh food from grocery stores, hand-sorts it and packages it up for organisations – from churches to women’s refuges to a new mothers’ group. What started out as a grassroots initiative sorting food on a ping-pong table in 2011 has now grown to include a fleet of four vans, and an efficient operation delivering millions of meals across West Auckland every year.

Tackling climate change and poverty simultaneously

“When we think about climate and social solutions that go together, we’re doing it,” says Michelle. Around a third of all food produced is wasted – in New Zealand alone, we’re chucking out around 300,000 tonnes every year. That’s 30 times heavier than the Eiffel Tower.

Food waste contributes 8-10% of global climate pollution – a proportion four times larger than the aviation industry. This pollution originates from the wasted carbon emissions that went into producing a piece of food and transporting it, as well as the methane that’s released by food rotting in landfill.

Rescued food not enough to satiate demand

While we’re wasting all this food, up to 40% of New Zealanders may experience food insecurity, and for 7% this can be severe – meaning going a day or more without food. This failure to link up good food with people who need it is a symptom of a broken system, further exacerbated by the cost of living crisis. Food rescue steps in to fill a gap that shouldn’t be there. “We don’t celebrate growth in our industry,” says Michelle.

But the industry has grown, especially in the wake of the pandemic. Lockdowns wreaked havoc with supply chains, creating food surplus haphazardly, while more people than ever needed to access rescued food as economic turmoil upended lives. “Last year, we processed 2.2 million meals’ worth of food, and we could do more,” says Michelle. “Every single day, we don’t have enough to meet demand.” They’re not alone: food rescue operations have sprung up across the country. Collectively, they rescued 7,641,627kg of food, saving an estimated 20,250 tonnes of CO2 in 2021.

Kai handled with aroha and care

A group of volunteers arrives and dons high-vis vests and gloves to hand-sort today’s haul of rescued food. There are fresh fruit and veges lovingly spruced up and assembled into boxes, ready to eat. One of the volunteers, Eglee, is from Brazil, where “a lot of people are hungry,” she says. “To see good food go to the rubbish hurts my heart.”

Other produce is more suited to cooking and some of it will stay here in the Fair Food kitchen to be rustled up into something tasty – with tomato season approaching, huge batches of tomato sauce are on the menu. Some produce is too far gone for people, but makes perfect tucker for pigs, so that’s where it goes: to a pig farm.

This process can generate a tasty meal for just 40 cents in operating costs. “Our kind of secret sauce is that we know the food’s getting eaten because we know the culturally responsive and appropriate and dignified way to provide food,” says Michelle. “We have had a decade to figure out what works for our home community and for the 40-ish charities that we see every single week.”

‘Your nose is your best indicator’

Fair Food has clear guidelines for packaged food featuring use-by and best-before dates. But the window of edibility for some products might surprise you: “Butter, for Christ's sake! Nine freakin’ months that bad boy will last,” Michelle says. She’s worried that we’ve become trapped in a perfection standard, and that many people don’t get the difference between use-by and best-before dates. Perhaps a “packaged on” date combined with greater awareness of shelf life would be more helpful for consumers and generate less waste, she suggests. But ultimately, Michelle says, “your nose tells you the best before date!”

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