Three key takeaways from this year’s Countdown Summit and AFRA Hui

This month we had the pleasure of hosting our annual Countdown Summit Food Rescue Partners Summit and AFRA Hui, in Ōtautahi Christchurch. A massive thank you to everyone who joined us as we celebrated the inspiring collaboration and dedication of our member organisations from across the country, all uniting in the fight against food waste while feeding our communities. Special thanks to Countdown for making the event possible. We had an inspiring lineup of speakers who generously gave their time and expertise, as well as thought-provoking workshops, that delved into the future of food rescue. Here’s a look at just a few of the top takeaways from across the two days:

The power of relentless incrementalism

We were lucky enough to have Mike Curtain, CEO of DC Central Kitchen, deliver the virtual keynote at our Hui. Mike and his team at DC Central Kitchen serve up 13,000 meals a day to those in need, as well as running a number of different social programmes include culinary job training that recruits participants from prisons.

Mike introduced us to a simple yet powerful concept he refers to as “relentless incrementalism”. He spoke about the futility of waking up with the mindset of “my job today is to end hunger”, because at the end of that day you’ll inevitably feel like a failure. Instead he focuses on doing just a little bit better every single day. This commitment to gradual, yet consistent improvement, means even small achievements can be celebrated along the way, which eventually build and build into greater victories.

(photo credit DCK media)

Collaboration is the real key to reducing food waste

Kaitlin Dawson is the Executive Director of NZ Food Waste Champions 12.3, a coalition of representatives from across the food supply chain, championing Aotearoa’s progress towards halving food waste by 2030. Among the many things Kaitlin covered, at the heart of her talk was the power of collaboration, which she described as “key to the success of our future resilient food system.” And because food waste happens at every point in the food system, from the field to the back corners of the fridges of everyday New Zealanders, collaboration is needed at each of those points too. Kaitlin challenged the audience to think about the opportunities we could grasp by working together, including prioritising feeding humans before livestock, to developing secondary markets for edible produce currently ending up in landfills.

Community and connection at the heart of what AFRA members do

What rang true across the two days was the power of food as a means to connect and care for our communities, and the collective responsibility we all have in that. Joseph Hullen of Ngāi Tahu gave a rousing talk about his experiences growing and gathering traditional Kai, but most importantly sharing it with others. He spoke of “taku kai mo to kai, my kai for your kai”, emphasising reciprocity, sharing, and using food as a way to foster support within the community.

And this is exactly what our AFRA members do on a daily basis. As a collective, AFRA members across the motu distribute over 20 tonnes of surplus food daily to those who need it. We know that time away from your organisations is precious, so we thank you for sharing your time, ideas, and enthusiasm, as we collaborated across these action-packed two days about the future of food rescue. We loved being under one roof, sharing kai together, and connecting in person.

Thank you also to our other speakers and workshop presenters, who included David Savage, Ellen Read, Gordon Harcourt, Dominique Leeming, Grace Wallace, and our board member Rebecca Culver for a beautiful off the cuff closing message.

To hear more from Mike Curtain, you can listen to his interview with Radio New Zealand here. Our members can access all of the presentations from the talk in the members area of our resource hub.