Foodbank Aotearoa
Last week we had the CEO of Foodbank Aotearoa speak to us about the work he and his team do to alleviate the plight of those in our community who struggle to afford to put a supply of nutritious meals on their table on a regular basis.
John Milligan and his wife Janice set up Foodbank Aotearoa six years ago. John has worked on four continents around the world and trained numerous executives. His motto is:
“Wise men plant trees in whose shade they will never sit”.
Over one third of the food grown around the world is wasted. 8o million people in the world go without food on any given day. New Zealanders throw away 122,547 tonnes of food including 20 million loaves of bread and nine and a half tons of potatoes a year!
The average New Zealand household throws away the equivalent of three large supermarket trolleys of food a year.
And yet across New Zealand, 270,000 kids go to school every morning without breakfast or go to bed each night without any dinner.
Foodbank Aotearoa was set up to collect surplus food from whatever source and to re-distribute it to local hubs who service those families that need it. Across New Zealand, 270,000 kids (or one in every four children) go to school every morning without breakfast or go to bed each night without dinner. It tackles the logistical problem of getting the food to people at the right time. Foodbank Aotearoa puts surplus food to good use in a sustainable way. We get surplus food safely to the hungry.
While hundreds of Cantabrians go hungry each day, safe, healthy and usable food is being disposed of as waste. We collect this nutritious surplus food from all segments of the food industry including restaurants, grocers, supermarkets, wholesalers, hotels and caterers.
We are most grateful for the support of over 240 volunteers such as you that make this all possible.
Post the Covid outbreak we are processing 95 tons of food a month. We work with 170 Charitable organisations in Christchurch and a further 26 in Timaru.
All food is turned over in 36 hours. We are supplying over 9,000 meals a day and still need to do more. We are New Zealand’s sole representative in the Global Foodbanking Network. A key approach of the team is:
“Fight Hunger Feed Hope”.
We thanked John & Janice for their efforts and look forward being able to support them going forward.