Philippa Holmes, a Rescued Food Line: Auckland, New Zealand
Philippa has been working with rescued food products for the last two years; originally, she and her team were using it as a way to provide great food at community events for free.
Over the last year, she has shifted to giving food parcels directly to families in need as she saw a huge increase in food security locally, in and around Panmure, Auckland.
Up until March this year she was helping around 30 families per week, but post-lockdown the need has soared to well over 100 per week.
While statistics are still being confirmed, Philippa has been hearing from others in the industry that pre-global financial crisis around 100,000 Kiwis sought food support, post-GFC that rose to 500,000 and right now the forecast for post COVID times is 1.2 million Kiwis are going to be in need of food support.
Philippa’s business idea is to create a high-end food product line that is solely made from rescued food (think, jams, chutneys, soups, etc) that would otherwise end up in the landfill but cannot be used in food parcels.
100% of the profits from this line will be put back into her work to solve food security issues. The profits will help free people from food insecurity, hire people into jobs and lift them out of poverty, and help support reducing waste to landfill.
Here's a bit more about Philippa and her ventures: https://www.aspargove.com/