Angela Calver: KiwiHarvest CEO on reducing food waste

It's estimated New Zealand throws away $3.2 billion of food every year. 

The Prime Minister's Chief Science Advisor, Dame Juliet Gerrard, has issued 27 recommendations to the Government. 

It calls for a national plan and target, smarter monitoring, better strategies to tackle food loss at source, promoting food rescue and upcycling to ensure edible food isn’t thrown out. 

KiwiHarvest is a food rescue business, taking food that is still perfectly usable so it doesn’t get thrown away and giving it to charities and institutions where it would be of use. 

CEO Angela Calver told Kerre Woodham that the best way to stop wastage in your home is to meal plan and plan ahead. 

She said that a lot of waste happens because of demand, supermarkets doing their best to ensure that if you buy a loaf of bread today, that loaf of bread will be on the shelf tomorrow as well. 

Calver said that planning and not over-buying food will help further down the supply chain and reduce waste. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the carry Wood and Morning's podcast from
News Talk, said b as I mentioned earlier.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
It's estimated our country throws away three point two billion
dollars of food every day. The Prime Minister's Chief Science Advisor,
Dame Juliet Gerrard, has issued twenty seven recommendations to the government,
calling for a national plan and target smarter and monitoring
better strategies to tackle food loss its source, promoting food

(00:33):
rescue and upcycling to ensure edible food isn't thrown out.
Kee We Harvest is a food rescue business and knows
all about these sorts of strategy. CEO Angela Calver joins me.

Speaker 3 (00:44):
Now, good morning to you, Hi, Kerry, how are you
going very very well?

Speaker 2 (00:49):
Thank you. At the fundraiser for Kiwi Harvest, we had
the most delicious meal. But then you know, you had
fabulous chefs like Pat Gordon and Michael Meredith and Brent
Martin and co. But that was all made from rescued food,
wasn't it. So they didn't know what they were going
to cook until the day of the dinner.

Speaker 3 (01:08):
No right, we like to keep them on their toes,
wonderful people that they are. But they turned out amazing food.
And generally the food that we receive it key we harvest,
is amazing food.

Speaker 2 (01:23):
Where does it come from?

Speaker 3 (01:26):
So we collect from two hundred and seventy food donors
and that's right across the supply chain from growers right
the waste fruit of supermarkets. So transport companies, distribution centers
will go anywhere because A we don't want to see
the food wasted and we've got a lot of people
to feed.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
So what happens after you collect the food? And when
you're talking about produced gross are these ugly fruits that
or veggies that might not get picked up? Or when
it comes to supermarkets, are they like one or two
days past the used by it or best before dates
or something like that.

Speaker 3 (02:04):
So A used by a pretty solid date, but unless
you know like you do at home, if if the
meat's got to use by on it of tomorrow, you
can put it in the freezer and extend its life.
Are used by on a on produce or bagged produce,

(02:26):
that then means that listeria or some other nasty bug
is starting to grow, so we won't we won't use that.
The best before is all around quality attributes it's not
as crispy as it should be. It's colors faded a bit,
it's not as busy or bubbly as it should be.
So there are quality attributes that that don't cause a

(02:50):
food safety. Food safety is out number one non negotiable.
Can we have us and so our guys are all
our staff and our volunteers get some training and that
sort of stuff. So we got eleven vehicles on the road.
We also have quite a large warehouse in East Tammicky,

(03:13):
and we start the day by packing up whatever's in
our warehouse across our five branches, and then we will
generally supermarkets. We call on about eighty supermarkets every day.
We'll collect from a couple of those and then we'll
drop to a recipient agency. So we support women's refuges,

(03:33):
community kitchens, homeless shelters, food banks and quite a few
educational institutions now.

Speaker 2 (03:41):
Too, right, So you take the food and just deliver it.
You're the conduit between the people who have the food
and the people who need the food. You don't cook
it or process it or anything like that.

Speaker 3 (03:55):
No, So we support charitable agencies where food is part
of their offering. So all of our agencies get audited
around foods safety, how they store the food, and to
make sure that they have a way onto their service,
so application process other wrap around services. Because food is

(04:17):
quite a powerful thing. It can really assist people out
of the situations that they find themselves in. But other
services like budgeting and social work education in a way
off of their service, so they're not sitting there for
years and years. We do sort the food as we
receive it. We also make sure that we give food

(04:39):
across the nutritional across the nutritional landscape, so produce a
lot of what we collect fruit and edge carbohydrates, bakery,
dairy things. So yeah, we moved so quickly because it
needs to be moved quickly because it wanted to go

(05:00):
to landfill. It's still perfectly edible, but it may only
be perfectly edible for a couple of days. This is
what you're gone by in the supermarket.

Speaker 2 (05:11):
It's difficult too because I think a lot of the
knowledge about planning meals, growing your own food, what to
do with food to extend it for you know, for
a larger family. You know you've got a basic amount
of protein and knowing how to extend that for larger

(05:31):
numbers of people. I think a lot of those skills
are being lost.

Speaker 3 (05:36):
I agree.

Speaker 2 (05:37):
Yeah, so it makes it difficult, doesn't it. I mean,
you might have this lovely food, but then if you
deliver it to people who don't you don't can't know
what you don't know who don't know how to cook
it or make the most of it. I guess that's
for another charity to sort out.

Speaker 3 (05:53):
No, we've got recipes on our website. We work with
Love Food, Hate Waste too, also have recipes. All of
the supermarkets do too, and then you get offerings like Hello,
where everything's foxed up and all of everything there for you.
If you don't know how to cook and don't know
how to extend the life of food, it's a great

(06:17):
place to start to address food waste.

Speaker 2 (06:20):
Ye.

Speaker 3 (06:23):
I suppose it's a lot of different for me. I
grew up with parents who grew up in England during
the Second World War, So yeah about it.

Speaker 2 (06:33):
We just talked to him about who was a Bosnian
refugee as a child, and she knows all about what
it is to go without. And you're right. I mean,
if people have smartphones, then they have recipes and then
they can learn if that is what they wish. Most
of the wastage happens at home. How do people do
their best to stop the waste within their four walls.

Speaker 3 (06:57):
Well, obviously a menu plan, and if you don't know
how to do that, you can start by doing someone
like Hello Fish because you then get recipes and it
shows you what your your something less would have to be.
You know, further down the track if you can keep
those recip cards and make up the menu. So that's

(07:22):
but you know, a lot of the ways comes because
super markets do their best to make sure that if
you buy a loaf of bread today, that lots of
bread will be there tomorrow. What the supermarkets do know
is that you threw that loaf of bread away. So
really planning and not over buying on food will help

(07:43):
further down the supply chain because a lot of people
don't understand supply chain right. It's very driven off of
demand planning. So if I consistently go and buy a
life of bread that I throw away, that loaf of
bread will always be there for me.

Speaker 2 (08:01):
Ye.

Speaker 3 (08:03):
A lot of customers in New zealand'ly unacceptable and they
complain to supermarkets and wholesalers and even dairies. We usually
Life for bread. I need to buy that Life bread now.
You know, it's completely unacceptable that we wouldn't have that
product sitting on a shelf waiting for it. The thing is,

(08:25):
and we're all guilty of it, is we the supermarkets
have quite tight specks on freaking bed. But that's because
then you can stand there and see and the produce files.
People stand there and they turn it and if there's
a bleamish on it, they'll put it to one side.
They don't want it, they want particular size stuff. Yeah,

(08:46):
stop being fussy, you know.

Speaker 2 (08:48):
Yeah, stop being fussy. Have a food plan. Use everything
that's there. Look for the recipes that are on all
the different resource sites. Angela, thank you for the work
that you do. And Angela Calvi, can we have a CEO?
News Talk said Be.

Speaker 1 (09:02):
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Talk Said Bee from nine am weekdays, or follow the
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