Our projects

Over 25,000 kgs of food re-distributed from Coles stores to date

Coles Community Food with SecondBite will see Coles supermarkets donating fruit, vegetables and bakery items which do not meet their in-store quality standards, but which are still safe and nutritious to eat, to SecondBite. This is a national program with a local focus, enabling communities around Australia access to fresh surplus food.

Coles has chosen to work exclusively with SecondBite because of our expertise in fresh food rescue, our focus on food safety procedures and quality control, and the SecondBite Community Connect™ model for regional areas.

At SecondBite we advocate strongly for collaboration in the community sector and to this end, we will be actively inviting other community groups around the country, who have infrastructure in place to collect from local Coles stores, to be part of this program. SecondBite will provide training to enable other organisations to collect from their local Coles stores, and looks forward to holding these conversations with groups around Australia following the launch of Coles Community Food with SecondBite.

 

 

 

 

SecondBite and Coles began working together in August 2010 on building the right process to ensure safe and reliable donation of surplus fresh food from Coles stores. A simple process has been developed during the pilot to allow Coles to roll this program out nation-wide. The pilot program has already resulted in donations of 25,527 kgs which equates to 51,054 meals for people who are doing it tough in the community. In year 1 of the program we will begin collections from about 250 stores across the country and expect to collect 1.3 million kgs of fresh food! In year 2 we will roll out to 450 stores and expect to collect 2.5 million kgs of fresh food, equivalent to over 5 million meals for people in need.

In major metropolitan areas, SecondBite will collect from stores using refrigerated van infrastructure. In all other areas, SecondBite Community Connect™ will be employed. This model of fresh food re-distribution facilitates a connection between a local food donor, in this case a Coles store, and a local community food program using volunteers.

Right: Stuart Machin, Coles Store Development and Operations Director & Ian Carson, SecondBite Co-Founder and Chairman

If you are a community food program interested in accessing local fresh surplus food or you would like more information click here

To read the media release click here

 

Community Connect

SecondBite Community Connect is an innovative model of food rescue that facilitates the redistribution of surplus fresh food from local food donors directly to local community groups. This sustainable and award winning program was created in 2009 to further SecondBite’s mission of making a positive difference to people by identifying sources of surplus fresh food that might otherwise go to waste, and coordinating its effective redistribution to people in need.

SecondBite Community Connect addresses the issue of food waste, and increases access to fresh nutritious food for people living in disadvantaged circumstances in our community.  It allows existing food programs in urban, rural and regional areas of Australia to access surplus food available locally. The ‘connection’ formed between a local agency and a local food donor is a positive engagement between the welfare and business sectors and strengthens communities over the long term.

 

Who can be involved?

Any community group, emergency food relief agency, or benevolent cause with an organised community food program, anywhere in Australia, can be part of SecondBite Community Connect.  Recipient agencies register with SecondBite (click here to complete enquiry form) and are then provided with a guide that outlines the contact details of the food donor, the collection process, food safety, training guides for staff/volunteers, manual handling processes, and guidelines for recording the collections. 

Who donates the food?

SecondBite has established relationships with the major retailers, local independent stores, market stalls and general food businesses.   The type of food donated varies according to the type of food donor and the requirements of the recipient agency, but in all cases SecondBite focus’ is on fresh healthy food. If you are a cafe, restaurant, farmer, grower, producer or orchardist that has fresh surplus food that maybe suitable for Community Connect please click here.

Why the focus on fresh food?

If there was an increased intake of fresh fruit and vegetables by just one serving a day for every Australian, this would result in health care savings of $24.4 million and $8.6 million per year, for costs associated with breast and lung cancer alone. Research suggests that the diets of those with the least socio-economic resources are often the most nutritionally compromised, placing them at risk of vitamin and mineral deficiencies and diet-related disease (read more about SecondBite's research here). SecondBite prioritises the rescue and redistribution of healthy fresh produce and nutritious prepared goods and through Community Connect, we have developed a scalable model for the whole of Australia.

The results

With a centralised reporting structure and participatory action research methods, the model is leading the sector for best practice, and the evaluation from our pilot-phase in March 2010 has shown a positive response to the program from both food businesses and the recipient community sector.

Last year, SecondBite Community Connect facilitated the redistribution of approx. 30 tonnes of surplus fresh food to 10 recipient community groups across 8 Victorian municipalities. This equates to 50,000 hearty nutritious meals, 23 tonnes of greenhouse gas emission saved, and nearly 200,000 serves of fruit and vegetables into low-income communities. In 2011 we are excited to replicate this success across the nation and already we have programs operating in Victoria, Tasmania and Queensland!!!

Read below for some of the agencies that participated in our pilot:  

SecondBite has enabled us to increase the food choices available to our clients. In particular through the set-up of the Community Connect collections from the stores we have now been able to offer additional fresh produce daily. We look forward to working more closely with SecondBite in the future to increase our service even more.

One of our attendees at the Helping Hand Cafe weekly free lunch became a volunteer (on the Community Connect program). There is amazing evidence of improvement in appearance, respect for others and self-respect.

A note from our Executive Director, Katy Barfield

By providing a safe, accredited and regulated system for both food donors and recipient agencies, Community Connect has the potential to proliferate across the nation with significant social, health, environmental and economical impact.

Food Angels

Driven by the needs of the recipient agencies we serve, SecondBite has created various partnership models of food redistribution to suit community specific needs. One of these models is Food Angels.

Food Angels was developed, piloted and evaluated by SecondBite in Victoria in 2008/09. It is a preventative & educational program designed to provide fresh nutritious food to families in crisis at home before they need to access emergency food relief. The program aims to provide support to families experiencing food insecurity by providing fresh food, nutritional information, cooking tips, and shopping assistance.

Food Angels participants are encouraged to cook and prepare their own meals with ingredients supplied by the Food Angels weekly hampers throughout a six-week period. Cooking tips and recipe ideas related to the food in the hamper are provided. Every week Food Angels participants will collect a food hamper, interact with the host agency and be linked in with community kitchens, support programs and other food-security initiatives.

The program is now running in both Victoria and Tasmania.

To see The 7pm Project's report on SecondBite's Food Angels program click here

 

Help yourself program

The Port Phillip ‘Help yourself’ free food co-op was established to support the agencies and services available to ‘at risk’ groups living in the City of Port Phillip. After our Sunday afternoon market collections, we deliver food to a central location (council cold storage) where local agencies can help themselves to food on a need basis.