Charity ensures food not wasted

Pact members (from left) Ross Chirnside and Graeme Russell help FoodShare CEO Deborah Manning and...
Pact members (from left) Ross Chirnside and Graeme Russell help FoodShare CEO Deborah Manning and driver Desi Liversage unload food in the Pact apartment kitchen in Dowling St yesterday. Photo by Linda Robertson.

Foodshare has fed more people than you have had hot dinners.

FoodShare chief executive Deborah Manning said, in the year since FoodShare began in 2012, it had rescued and redistributed 50 tonnes of fresh food - the equivalent of 142,857 meals.

The charity had been given an empty building on the corner of Ward and Halsey Sts in Dunedin and was after one-off grants, or long-term sponsors to ''fit out'' the building with sorting tables, office space and a walk-in chiller.

A chiller would allow food to be collected every day and be stored and delivered when organisations opened on a Monday.

The food collected was about 60% of fresh fruit and vegetables and the rest was bakery, meat and dairy products.

About 20 businesses were giving the food that was close to - or just past - its best-before date, or close to its use-by date, Ms Manning said.

The food was then delivered to 16 organisations within 24 hours.

Ms Manning said more organisations were on a waiting list and the charity's focus this year was to expand to ensure food being dumped was collected.

FoodShare driver Desi Liversage helped collect 500kg of fresh food yesterday from Countdown, Coupland's Bakery and Wishbone and distributed it to St Vincent de Paul foodbank, Brockville Community Church and Pact.

Pact lead facilitator Daniel Cheshire said FoodShare was ''a big help'' and the fresh produce was made into soups, used in cooking classes and given to service users in food parcels.

shawn.mcavinue@odt.co.nz

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