Food banks will be full this year thanks to the generosity of Aussie supermarkets
No Christmas ham will go to waste this year as Australia’s biggest supermarkets plan to give back to the less fortunate over the festive period.
Retail
Don't miss out on the headlines from Retail. Followed categories will be added to My News.
The excess Christmas hams and turkeys will not be going to waste this year thanks to partnerships between Aussie supermarkets and food banks throughout the country.
Each year in Australia more than five million tonnes of food ends up in landfill, enough to fill 9000 Olympic-sized swimming pools according to OzHarvest.
OzHarvest through its volunteer network collects excess food to give to the less fortunate every day, and Christmas will be no different.
More than 710,000 people rely on food relief each month with a quarter of those being children, and this Christmas, Aldi, Woolworths and Coles have all signed on to help.
“To avoid unsold food from going to waste, every Aldi store in Australia is linked to one or more food rescue partners, including OzHarvest, Foodbank and Secondbite,” an Aldi spokeswoman said.
More than 80 Aldi stores have partnered with open foodbanks to provide food between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Day.
“Other Aldi stores without a charity collection during this period will store surplus perishable foods to be donated in the new year when food rescue charities reopen,” the spokeswoman said.
Woolworths head of sustainability Adrian Cullen said Woolworths would provide the equivalent of around 900,000 meals throughout December.
“We also raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for OzHarvest through the sale of wall tokens, Santa cookies and in-store donations through our annual Christmas appeal,” he said.
Mr Cullen said the store also contributed products to community charities and in the last year more than 54,000 tonnes of surplus food was saved from going to landfill.
“We also encourage our customers to make the most of their Christmas leftovers through the tips and recipe ideas on our Food Savers website,” he said.
Coles has also donated food throughout the year, and so far this year more than 25 million meals have been supplied to people in need.
“We donate unsold edible food from 784 supermarkets to more than 1300 community groups across Australia, and with Christmas around the corner our teams are working hard to get this nutritious food to those who need it most,” a spokesman said.
Coles has also worked with farmers and wildlife parks to donate surplus food for animal feed.
“For remaining food waste, Coles works with waste industry partners to send unsold food to composting and food waste to energy facilities while also trialling new initiatives such as in-store food digesters,” the spokesman said.
Originally published as Food banks will be full this year thanks to the generosity of Aussie supermarkets