Fighting Climate Change One Meal at a Time

From day one, we wanted Wholesome to be a business that made an impact. While we had already decided on offering free memberships to low income families, enabling them to buy eco-health groceries at wholesale prices, we knew that there were Australians who couldn’t even afford to put a meal on the table.

One in six Australians suffer from food insecurity (and last year 1.2 million were children) and don’t have enough nutritious food on a daily basis[1] – an astounding statistic in our ‘lucky country’.

We knew we couldn’t change this narrative alone so we looked externally at not-for-profit organisations in Australia with whom we could partner to help achieve our goals. It was critical that our partners shared our same ethos and passion for both a more equitable and sustainable world.

We were also looking for partners who not only helped provide to vulnerable Australians, but also prioritised educational programs to enable lasting, positive change in our communities.

OzHarvest, Australia’s leading food rescue organisation is the incredible organisation that we choose to partner with to fight hunger and combat food waste, in effect tackling the climate crisis. Ronni Kahn, who founded OzHarvest in 2004, along with the dedicated OzHarvest teams and volunteers, has been an incredible inspiration to all of us at Wholesome.

For every new member we commit the equivalent of five nutritious meals to Australians in need. OzHarvest’s equation of $1=2 meals includes all costs required to deliver the food rescue service, such as vehicles, drivers, warehouse and logistics costs.

We also donate and facilitate donation of food and supplies from our brand partners such as the 20,000 bottles of sanitiser we donated during the pandemic for OzHarvest WA to distribute to their charity partners.

To date, it is thanks to our members that we’ve contributed to:

• 33,200 meals delivered to vulnerable people
• 16,600 kilograms of food saved
• 109,560 kilograms of greenhouse emissions prevented through avoiding food waste
• 5,727,000 litres of water saved

OzHarvest is committed to halving food waste in Australia by 2030. An inspirational goal that they aim to achieve by diverting surplus food from ending up in landfill and delivering it to charities that help feed people in need. They are also committed to inspiring and educating others to join in the fight to reduce food waste. Their range of educational programs are targeted at improving life skills and increasing healthy eating and food waste awareness in primary school kids, ‘at risk’ youth and families in need. We are humbled to be a part of achieving this incredible goal.

Did you know:

• Food waste, often overlooked in the climate change debate, is responsible for 8-10% of global greenhouse gasses. That’s more than all the emissions from the plastic we produce (3.8%), the aviation section (1.9%) and from extracting oil (3.8%).[2]
• Food waste costs the global economy nearly $1 trillion US each year, while 690 million people still go hungry, and three billion people can’t afford a healthy diet.[3]
• In Australia, our annual food waste is an astonishing 7.6+ million tonnes each year, costing the economy more than $36.6 billion each year? In fact, the UNEP Food Waste Index ranks Australia as the tenth most wasteful country in the world.[4]

Head to OzHarvest’s site to read more astonishing food waste facts.

Food waste is a major contributor to climate change, but we can all take action, starting in our own homes and kitchens. OzHarvest has established a campaign called Use It Up to help Australians reduce their food waste at home. The program makes it easy to reduce waste through innovative recipes, a bespoke tape to identify food in your fridge or pantry that needs using up first and through awareness and research.

Here are our top tips to help you reduce food waste at home:

• Make a weekly meal plan (and stick to it)
• Choose the ‘ugly’ fruits and veggies - they taste the same!
• Scrub your veggies and fruit instead of peeling
• Check your fruit and veggies before using to see which ones need eating first Eat leftovers for lunch the next day (and the next)
• Use mature fruits and veggies for smoothies, juices, desserts, casseroles, stews, soups and frittatas
• Make a large batch and freeze portions for future meals
• Use bones and vegetable offcuts to make your own stock (make immediately or freeze for later)
• And when waste is unavoidable use your food scraps for compost!

Follow this link to explore these delicious recipes created by OzHarvest ambassadors aimed at reducing food waste.

[1] FoodBank Hunger Report 2021 [2] WRI: World GHG Emissions 2016, https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-019-0459-z [3] https://www.fao.org/save-food/resources/publications/en/ [4] https://www.fial.com.au/sharing-knowledge/food-waste [Cover] https://www.ozharvest.org/news/new-ozharvest-trucks-in-canberra-and-wollongong/