About a fortnight ago, the supermarket’s owners Anthony and Michelle King arranged for four pallets of food to be given to local food rescue charity KiwiHarvest, worth about $3000.
That included 1248 cans of short-dated Pams whole tomatoes, which were still safe and high-quality, long-lasting fresh produce such as onions and pumpkins, and dry goods including pasta and Weet-Bix.
Michelle says the items were excess stock following Pak’nSave’s in-store 40th birthday celebrations and, in conjunction with store manager Luke Hearn, they thought it’d be a good way to support the community "with some good, wholesome food".
The Kings have a long-standing relationship with KiwiHarvest, dating back to the charity’s launch in 2012, but its Queenstown branch manager Gary Hough says this month’s donation is "huge".
"In food rescue, there are some things we just don’t see a lot of, like onions and canned tomatoes ... they’re the things that the charities need to make the meals."
The Queenstown branch was established in 2018 — here, it redistributes food to a wide range of other charities, spread across Queenstown Lakes and Central Otago, including Baskets of Blessing, Salvation Army and Happiness House.
Hough says they’re working on the figures for the first six months of the year, but says some recipients, including Baskets, have been "smashed" this year.
"In general, people are living quite close to the line, we find."
The Pak’nSave donation’s already been distributed far and wide across KiwiHarvest’s patch, and will have a "big ripple effect", he says.
Michelle says they’re stoked to be able to support the wider community through the food rescue charity.
"It just makes it so achievable, because we’re not needing to connect with all those individual charities, but we’re very pleased to see them all benefit."
