Conscious Kitchen Feeds People Not Landfills

Fair Food expands our reach in the West Auckland community with the official opening of a donated kitchen, thanks to the DE Group and Jones Family Business, and support from DIA Lotteries and MSD.

“At Fair Food, we’re passionate about feeding our communities in need. We know how good it feels when someone’s taken the time to make you a nice meal or baked some banana cake, especially during a stressful time,” shares Michelle Blau, Fair Food General Manager.

“Our new kitchen facilities make it possible to get up to 2500 more meals to our charity partners across Auckland every month. By saving this food from landfill, our aim is for the Conscious Kitchen to keep more than 9.3 tonnes of greenhouse gases from going into the atmosphere over the next year.

“The kitchen is the heart of any home. We are excited to now have space to offer community cooking classes and educational events, too. We are overwhelmed by the generosity of the DE Group and Jones Family Business helping make this vision come true,” says Ms. Blau.  

“When we first heard about Fair Food, we were very moved by the positive impact that they have on the community. At Kitchen Things, we help people get the most out of their appliances and at Fair Food, they help people get the most out of food, so we felt a strong alignment. Being a New Zealand, intergenerational family business, we were delighted to donate the kitchen and a suite of new Inalto and Smeg kitchen appliances that can further help Fair Food to maximise the use of food they rescue,” shares Rachel Louie, Managing Director of Jones Family Business and Kitchen Things. 

What the kitchen means to Fair Food

We lovingly hand-sort all our fruits and veggies, but we didn’t have a way to upcycle the ones that need to be cooked right away. Having a kitchen will allow us to make the most of the food we rescue every day to make soups, baked goods, meal kits, and other prepared meals for people who don’t have access to adequate cooking facilities. Currently, that food has to go to animal farmers or the compost bin.

We hope to grow to be able to rescue an extra one tonne of food each month to share 2,500 more meals with the community.  The CO2 savings from this rescued food is 778 kilograms of toxic greenhouse gases saved from the atmosphere each month.

Over winter, June- August 2022, we have provided food for over 492,000 meals to our communities in need. We can do this for an operating cost of about $1.20 for 3 meals. Last year, we rescued 753 tonnes of food from going to landfill. That’s 2.2 million meals thanks to our food rescue superheroes!

Get involved

We’re powered by hundreds of volunteers who hand-sort fresh food in our hub in Avondale and prepare it for 30+ trusted partner charities to distribute to people in need including asylum seekers, young parents, those sleeping rough, mental health agencies, and women and children experiencing domestic violence.

If you’ve got kitchen skills and would like to volunteer to help cook or bake, please get in touch with us.

Food and climate

When we feed people not landfill, we are doing our bit to stop climate change.

Food breaks down as methane, which is 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide at warming our planet. When we keep food from being wasted, it’s a major climate intervention. Globally, one third of all food produced is wasted. The greenhouse gas emissions from food loss and waste are the same as road transport globally, and more than four times the emissions of the aviation industry.