How to give food
Your food business can donate surplus food, to help local people.
Keltie checking out the day’s food rescue from Kāpiti supermarkets.
Every month, Kaibosh redistributes 75,000kg of good, rescued kai to people in need in our local communities.
We do this with the generous support from over 100 food businesses who regularly donate quality surplus food – farms, orchards, manufacturers, bakeries, supermarkets, retailers and produce markets across Te Upoko o te Ika/Greater Wellington Region.
Can you donate food? Read the FAQs below to find out what food can and can’t be donated, then get in touch with our team.
Food rescue processes for businesses
Contact us to discuss the food donation you’d like to make. We’ll give you:
Information about the foods that Kaibosh does and doesn’t rescue,
Official food donation advice from the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI),
A Memorandum of Understanding which outlines Kaibosh’s and your responsibilities when donating food.
Once you’re signed up as a food donor, we’ll arrange a pick-up schedule that suits you. This may be a regular pick-up each day or week, or an ad hoc pick-up when you have food to donate.
At the arranged time, our driver will collect your quality surplus food in our Kaibosh food rescue van.
Donated food is taken to our premises, where trained food sorting volunteers check it for quality before getting it ready for our community group recipients to collect the following day.
Food that doesn’t meet our quality standards for passing on to community groups is donated to chickens in the Hutt – who give us eggs in return.
We sort food for quality and ensure good food feeds people first, then feeds animals, then to local compost. Following the food recovery heirarchy.
Food is handled and stored in line with the highest food safety standards throughout the entire process.
FAQs
What food do we rescue?
- Fresh produce
- Frozen or fresh meat (excluding raw chicken)
- Dairy products, including milk
- Eggs
- Frozen foods
- Pre-packaged foods or meals in unopened, original packaging
- Catered food that has not been served
- Packaged sandwiches, bread and bakery products
- Non-alcoholic beverages
What food don’t we rescue?
- Food that is no longer fit for human consumption due to decay or spoiling
- Food that is past its ‘Use By’ or ‘Expiry’ date
- Cooked food not prepared in a commercial kitchen
- Catered food that has been served (on a buffet or similar)
- Shellfish and other high risk seafood
- Raw chicken
- Food in damaged or open packaging which may compromise food safety
- Foods or beverages containing alcohol
- General rubbish e.g. cut scraps, vegetable peelings
How about Food Safety regulations?
There are no regulations stopping businesses from donating surplus food and it is safe to do so.
Please note that we can only accept food from licensed food outlets and professionally catered events – not meals/kai cooked/prepared in individual homes. Kaibosh holds itself to the highest food safety standards and we’ll work closely with you to make sure that we get the best result for all.
One-off donations of surplus food
At Kaibosh we do take one-off and ad-hoc food donations from licensed food businesses, but we can only accept certain types of food outlined above.
Public donations of food
We can only accept fresh home-grown vegetables and fruit from the public.
If you would like to donate surplus from your home garden or community mara kai, we’d love to hear from you. Contact your nearest Kaibosh site.
If you have fruit trees with seasonal surplus Community Fruit can help you out. They will pick the surplus and bring it to the nearest Kaibosh site so we can distribute it to local whānau in need.
For household grocery/pantry items to donate please contact an organisations who can accept these e.g. DCM in Wellington, local community centres or food banks. Or, join the growing movement of Pātaka Kai (community food cupboards) – search using Google or Facebook to locate your nearest community Pātaka Kai.
Are you a farm or an orchard?
Do you have produce that won’t make it to market? Or seasonal surplus?
We can support you with our Second Harvest programme – connecting kai with our trusted community partners to feed whānau and strengthen regional food resilience.
Help us achieve our vision of zero food poverty, zero food waste
Be part of a community-powered movement creating lasting change.