Our network of like-minded partners continues to grow and this year we welcomed Suncorp Bank who joined Woolworths, BP and Goodman as a major national partner. Suncorp Bank are helping us ‘to save what matters, food and money’ with a new national campaign The Food Savings Challenge and funding a new kitchen in Brisbane.
Woolworths has provided over 70 million meals since our partnership began and we rely on their regular supply of fresh and nutritious food from more than 600 Woolworths stores to help address the ongoing need. BP keep our wheels turning and fuel our expanding fleet. Goodman’s unwavering support enables us to further our reach in urban communities and help keep our Refettorio doors open. Gastronomy continues to grow their support by donating a 100% of their profits to OzHarvest!
Collectively, our national partnerships boost our ability to rescue more food and enabled us to provide over 14 million meals to people in need this year. We could not do what we do without them.
Working closely with our peers Foodbank and SecondBite, we strengthened our voice to government to urge action on addressing the ongoing issue of food insecurity in Australia. We are constantly lobbying to increase funding to enable the sector to meet ongoing demand and presented a joint federal budget submission outlining the priorities for our sector.
Inspiring change and driving action towards the national goal of halving food waste by 2030 is always on our agenda. To coincide with International Food Loss & Waste Day in September, we launched our first petition calling on Environment Minister, Tanya Plibersek to end food waste to landfill in Australia.
Across the year we contributed to governments reviews and inquiries on food relief and food waste through providing written submission and giving evidence, including:
We welcomed a host of political leaders from a range of jurisdictions who have jumped in vans or visited our offices to see all the fantastic things we are doing over the past year.
It’s been a momentous year for our campaign to tackle household food waste, with over 92,000 households nationally and overseas wasting less with Use It Up Tape™! Research with BehaviourWorks Australia revealed that households using the tape reduced their food waste by 40% – confirming this is a solution that sticks!
To achieve our goal of embedding the Use It Up behaviour nationally, we’re working with local councils and corporate partners to amplify the campaign. Thanks to City of Casey for helping us pilot a Use It Up toolkit and our new partners at Suncorp Bank for raising awareness and inspiring action with their Food Savings Challenge. And bp for promoting promote tape to their customers in the run up to Christmas.
Our ‘let’s fight food waste’ message and Use It Up Tape were emblazoned on a Yarra Tram in Melbourne and pops of yellow could be seen on bus shelters in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne thanks to JCDecaux’s in-kind partnership.
OzHarvest chefs continue to inspire kitchen confidence by creating magic with Use It Up recipes and hacks shared across our social and digital media. And TikTok for Good shared influencer content to make using it up look easy!
We were delighted to share our tape with the Netherlands Nutrition Centre Voedingscentrum, who translated it to ‘Eerst Op Tape’ (literally First Up tape) and distributed it to 20,000 households as part of their Food Waste Action Week with great success!