Donate food
Are you a farmer, food wholesaler, food business or individual who hates to see your good food going to waste? Let’s talk! Scroll down to the bottom of this page to express your interest.
Food donor spotlight: Toscanos
Generous food donors such as Bob Toscano share SecondBite’s vision of reducing hunger and waste and improving the nutrition of vulnerable members of our community.
Recently, we had the opportunity to interview Bob Toscano at the Hawksburn store, and see firsthand the way business is conducted and how SecondBite fits into their weekly program.
Bob explained that “they are now fully involved with the Second Bite project, and are proud of their contribution to this worthy community service”.
By way of background, the Toscano family is one of Melbourne’s finest fruit and vegetable suppliers. Since the first Toscano’s store opened its doors in 1956, 3 generations of the Toscano family have established very high standards in quality and service for fruit and vegetable retailing. Their stores offer an extensive range of produce with service that is friendly and informative, providing a pleasurable shopping experience that their customers have come to expect.
Toscano’s not only provides everyday quality fruit and vegetables, but also rare and exotic treats such as French truffles, Zucchini flowers, wild mushrooms, just to name a few. Toscano’s also selects the best range of oils, pastas, yoghurt as well as a huge range of nuts, dried fruit, free range eggs, cheese, herbs and spices.
More recently Toscano’s have expanded to offer three convenient locations in Kew, Richmond and Hawksburn Toorak. All three Toscano’s stores have an extensive range of fresh flowers including Australian native flowers at value prices. It’s hard to miss the beautiful display of fresh flowers as you enter each store.
Toscano’s philosophy is to provide their customers with the Best Quality produce … at value prices coupled with friendly service and information.
Bob Toscano has been involved in the business for as “long as he can remember”, however in the last 10 years he has been directly involved with the key aspects of quality control and customer service. As Bob reflects, “Good old fashioned customer service, involving a lot of chatting with customers has resulted in the nickname of Uncle Bob”.
Bob found out about SecondBite, whilst in conversation with one of their customers “long standing Second Bite volunteer Sarah” about the issue of food wastage. One of his initial concerns with providing ‘rescued food stock’ was the reliability of the SecondBite logistics in terms of regular and reliable pick-ups. From his viewpoint, he couldn’t afford to continually move ‘rescued stock’ around their cool rooms, if pick-ups didn’t occur on the days planned. Bob acknowledges that he “needn’t have worried” as from day 1, SecondBite staff have picked up their produce on the nominated days, and because of this they now have a permanent section of their cool room specifically for Second Bite produce, which works extremely well.
Bob explained that “they are now fully involved with the SecondBite project, and are proud of their contribution to this worthy community service”.
We collaborate with other food rescue initiatives, community organisations and food donors to collect and redistribute surplus food from all over Australia!
Click here for a list of food that we can rescue and redistribute.
For more information about the legal donation of rescued food in:
- Victoria click here
- Tasmania click here
- New South Wales click here
- Australian Capital Territory click here
- Queensland click here
- Western Australia click here
- Northern Territory click here
- South Australia click here
If you wish to donate, simply fill out the form below to make an inquiry or feel free to give us a call if you have any questions.
Donor enquiries
SecondBite will be in touch within 48 hours. If you have not heard anything within this time, please do not hesitate to contact our office on (03) 9376 3800.
For food donation enquiries, please contact Mark Patton on: (03) 9376 3800.