New charity boss offers food for thought

The new chief of a food charity says Australia has the opportunity to lead the world in dealing with food waste.

The new chief executive of the Melbourne-based multi-million dollar food charity backed by supermarket giant Coles says Australia has the opportunity to lead the world in dealing with the global scourge of food waste.

Jim Mullan, the former CEO of the Big Issue magazine in Britain, yesterday started in the role as CEO of SecondBite, replacing Elaine Montegriffo.

Mr Mullan, a Scot, has over three decades of community business experience and was granted a distinguished talent visa by the Australian government for the SecondBite role in recognition of his work internationally in the field of social enterprise.

“I wanted a job that has the potential to have significant and dramatic impact. And has the potential to be influential with the way not-for-profit business is done in Australia,’’ he said.

This year SecondBite will redistribute enough food for more than 17 million meals and now delivers food to 1290 community groups across Australia, saving them $27 million in food costs last year.

Unlike other food charities such as OzHarvest, Food Rescue and Fareshare, SecondBite focuses on fresh produce, with 75 per cent of the food it redistributes being fresh fruit and vegetables

The group’s cost per meal over the past 8 years has fallen 70 per cent from 98c a meal to about 30c each.

About 3½ years ago it struck a national partnership with Coles and more than 500 of the retailers’ stores are now a part of the program.

Mr Mullan said the problem of food wastage remained one of the biggest challenges facing the world.

“For all of us, for society in general, the notion that we have sections of our population who are malnourished or don’t have enough food seems the most illogical proposition,’’ he said.

“As government has moved out of this area, the structures that have come into place feel ad hoc, quite fragile and no one seems to have landed on a way to provide this absolutely fundamental social element.

“As the gap between rich and poor continues to grow, we are going to have to find a new solution.

“It would be great if Australia led the way on this. That is my ambition for SecondBite.’’