Who We Are
Founded by Ronni Kahn AO in 2004 after noticing the huge volume of food going to waste, OzHarvest has quickly grown to become Australia’s leading food rescue organisation.
The OzHarvest Story
OzHarvest was founded in 2004 by Ronni Kahn AO, after noticing the huge volume of food going to waste from her events business. Ronni did not set out to start a charity, rather just fix an obvious problem with a simple solution. Starting with one van in Sydney, she began rescuing food and delivering it to local charities.
As OzHarvest grew, Ronni and a team of pro-bono lawyers lobbied state governments to amend legislation allowing potential food donors to give their surplus food to charities without fear of liability. The Civil Liabilities Amendment Act was passed in NSW in 2005 and other states followed.
From humble beginnings, OzHarvest has become a leading food rescue organisation on a mission to ‘Nourish our Country’ by stopping good food from going to waste and delivering it to charities that help feed people in need. Our yellow vans are out and about in communities every day, collecting quality surplus food from a network of donors, including supermarkets, cafes, delis, restaurants, corporate kitchens, airlines, hotels and other food businesses.
Today, OzHarvest operates nationally with offices in Sydney, Adelaide, Brisbane, Gold Coast, Cairns, Canberra, Melbourne, Newcastle and Perth, and through a team of passionate volunteers in regional communities.
We are constantly looking for new ways to inspire and educate people about food waste, food security and sustainability. Through our education programs and our advocacy work, we hope to inspire others to change behaviour and help reach the national target of halving food waste by 2030.
Everyone in the OzHarvest Family is driven by the same purpose and are committed to making a difference. It’s a mammoth team effort, made up of devoted staff, passionate and like-minded partners and an ever growing ‘yellow army’ of volunteers who live and breathe our message every day.
The challenge is to create a sustainable food culture that can be shared by all which needs all of us to play our part. We believe food is just too precious to waste and every time we throw something away, it’s literally costing us the earth.
Every $1 donated allows OzHarvest to deliver two meals to people in need.
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Ronni Kahn
‘Be brave and courageous, because all you have is NOW’
Hunger and malnutrition are not words you would often associate with Australia. Ronni Kahn would and she’s determined to make a difference. For Ronni Kahn, growing up food was about sharing and showing you care. Her mother was a gourmet cook (though Ronni freely admits she wasn’t such a fan in her youth). As she puts it “Beautiful, beautiful warm […]
For Ronni Kahn, growing up food was about sharing and showing you care.
Her mother was a gourmet cook (though Ronni freely admits she wasn’t such a fan in her youth). As she puts it “Beautiful, beautiful warm heart-filled moments always happened around food in our family”, so it’s unsurprising that a woman who so wholly understands that food isn’t just about nutrition, that it’s about love, started a charity to help feed those in need.
What she didn’t expect was for it to become the force it is, a household name and a game changer.
Ronni Kahn is warm, funny and inviting, everything you would expect of the ultimate philanthropist. She grew up in South Africa during a time of immense discrimination, something that her parents did not stand for. This came to be the biggest influence in her decision to start OzHarvest; the old adage of treating people how you would like to be treated.
In her own words, Ronni says the purpose of OzHarvest is to nourish our country, which is done through rescuing food, educating members of the public and vulnerable people to live a more sustainable life, and by innovating ways to shift and end the man-made problem of hunger.
Prior to her time as a social enterprise leader, Ronni ran a successful event management company. She saw first hand the amount of food waste that the hospitality industry creates each and every day. It was here she decided it was time to do something. Though a risky choice, it’s paid dividends to the community for the past 12 years.
“I never set up OzHarvest intending or understanding that this could be a way of life or that I could support myself. I ran my business for the first seven years of OzHarvest to support myself because I never started OzHarvest because I was a rich bored housewife,” she laughs.
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