City of Sydney, Coles and SecondBite partner to provide the equivalent of 158,750 meals to Sydney residents impacted by COVID
25 August 2021
SecondBite, City of Sydney and Coles have banded together to provide vital food relief to vulnerable Sydney residents by donating and delivering the equivalent of 158,750 meals to individuals and families impacted by COVID-19.
SecondBite is one of the largest food rescue organisations in Australia. It works with growers, manufacturers and retailers to rescue surplus food and distribute this food to over 1,300+ community food programs across Australia.
The City of Sydney provided SecondBite with a $100,000 donation as part of its 2021 Lockdown Response, while Coles donated 120,000 essential food pantry items as part of the Coles and SecondBite Community Food Program.
SecondBite will use the City of Sydney donation to coordinate the distribution of food donated by Coles over the next 12 weeks. It will also source 35,000 high quality frozen meals from Plate It Forward who will use both rescued food supplied by SecondBite and procured ingredients to produce the meals.
“No one should have to worry about having enough to eat. But right now, many Sydneysiders are,” Lord Mayor Clover Moore said. “The City of Sydney is proud to partner with Coles and SecondBite to get vital food relief to those who need it most and make sure no one is left behind through the pandemic,” said Clover Moore, Lord Mayor of Sydney.
In the next week, Coles will deliver 92 pallets of donated food including canned tomatoes, legumes, rice, pasta and flour to SecondBite.
Thinus Keeve, Chief Sustainability, Property and Export Officer at Coles said, “Coles has a 10 year partnership with SecondBite working towards zero hunger and we are committed to donating food from our supermarkets and distribution centres to help people in times of need. We also know that so many people are facing tough times in Sydney so when SecondBite approached us to be involved in this food relief initiative, we wanted to provide our support. This is something we know matters to our customers too, who donated more than $1.6 million to our recent SecondBite Winter Appeal at Coles supermarkets, Liquorland, First Choice Liquor Market and Vintage Cellars stores.”
SecondBite will distribute the pantry food and frozen meals to community food program providers in inner city Sydney including Addi Road’s Food Pantries in Marrickville and Camperdown, Living Hope Church in Camperdown, and C3 City Campus in Smithfield. These organisations will use the donated food in their food relief hampers, community pantries and meals programs to help vulnerable locals.
Rosanna Barbero, CEO at Addi Road Community Organisation said, “We’ve been packing and distributing over 2,000 food relief hampers each week to local councils and community food programs. Demand just continues to soar each week.”
SecondBite is working with over 100 community food programs in Greater Sydney as well as Dubbo and far north NSW. Many food programs have been impacted by COVID and heavily rely on food distributed by SecondBite.
Steve Clifford, SecondBite’s CEO said, “In times like these we are very grateful for the generous support of partners such as The City of Sydney and Coles, and our amazing agencies. Thanks to their support, more Sydney residents will have access to the nutritious food they need in this difficult time.”
To donate to SecondBite visit
secondbite.org
For further information, please contact Coles Media Line (03) 9829 5250 or
media.relations@coles.com.au
