Australia’s leading food rescue organisation, OzHarvest, has launched an expansion into Victoria with the opening of their new Melbourne office, a space located in Carnegie.

Even in Australia’s fastest growing city, Melbourne, there are still half a million people living in poverty[1].

OzHarvest’s expansion to Victoria, aims to provide good quality surplus food to Melbourne’s most vulnerable citizens, and is the first food charity in Melbourne rescuing excess food from all types of food outlets including restaurants, cafes, hotels, office boardrooms, direct from manufacturers, producers, farmers and hospitality organisations on a daily basis.

Australians throw away the equivalent of $7.8 billion dollars of food waste every year.[2] This means that more than 4 million tonnes of food ends up as landfill, contributing to toxic carbon emissions and polluting our environment. Meanwhile, two million people in Australia alone, still rely on food relief every year.[3]

Founder and CEO of OzHarvest, Ronni Kahn believes that every Australian should have access to fresh and nutritious food.

Kahn said, “There is still a huge need for food rescue in Melbourne with existing charitable organisations reporting that they are not able to meet current demand.”

“OzHarvest has been operating for more than eight years in Sydney, Brisbane and Adelaide and now we’re very glad we’re able to provide this service of delivering food to those in need in Victoria.

OzHarvest aims to help these people who could benefit from a better diet but are frequently unable to afford it, with fresh food donations that would otherwise have been dumped.

A number of welfare agencies have already signed up to receive food from OzHarvest Melbourne office including St Kilda Gatehouse, Creative Australia – St Kilda Sings, RhED, Open Family Australia.

St Kilda Gatehouse representative, said: “We are thrilled to be partnered with OzHarvest and help us provide more nourishment for local St Kilda street sex workers who represent an at-risk group of individuals that find it difficult to access mainstream services”

For more information about OzHarvest visit www.ozharvest.org or call 1800 108 006.

For food donations, to volunteer, or to become a partner of OzHarvest Melbourne, please contact SuzanneMadden:

E: [email protected]

[1] Australian Bureau of Statistics

[2]Australian Bureau of Statistics

3 Foodwise.com.au

4[3] ACOSS, 2012