Love Food Hate Waste grants awarded and project summaries

Hidden Harvest

A Taste of Less Waste - $33,032

A Taste of Less Waste is a series of dinner events for young adults in the Illawarra region that quite literally bring the issues of food waste to the table. Participants will enjoy meals made from surplus produce as well as learn tips on how they can reduce food waste at home. The project will divert 500 kilograms of food from landfill by what’s put on the table and an additional 1000 kilograms by guests adopting the food-waste reduction strategies they learn.

Kariong Eco Garden Incorporated

Making it normal to avoid food waste - $18,733

Making food-waste avoidance normal is all about taking the Love Food Hate Waste message to the community. Kariong Eco Garden will engage its community at supermarkets and shopping centres where participants can taste meals made from surplus. There will also be opportunities to learn how to grow your own food.

Muslim Aid Limited

Strategic interventions on food waste - $55,000

Muslim Aid’s project will engage the community to reduce food waste at home. The project involves working with young adults, teaching them the skills needed to plan and prepare meals as well as how to store food to maximise its longevity. This holistic project will also encourage members to donate surplus food to other members of their community in need.

NetWaste

Love food, hate waste and improve your health - $10,735

NetWaste is partnering with the Cancer Council NSW to provide interactive Love Food Hate Waste workshops to people in Western NSW. The workshops will discuss food-waste avoidance actions such as shopping to a list and meal planning, complemented by the consistent nutritional messaging in the Cancer Council’s Eat It To Beat It program. Participants will also learn how to cook low-cost meals.

Riverwood Community Centre

Riverwood Healthy Foodies project - $35,000

The Riverwood Healthy Foodies project will target families living on the Riverwood social housing estate, as well as younger residents experiencing adversity. Residents will participate in a series of workshops where they will gain skills to better manage their food such as through enhanced storage. They will also learn about finding the balance in buying nutritional food at affordable cost.

Southern Tablelands Arts Incorporated (STARTS)

Waste Free for Me - $32,825

Waste Free for Me is an environmental arts project working with communities across three local-government areas. The project will bring together citizen science and creative practice to build knowledge and understanding about the impact of food waste for families and their councils. This project will focus on biodegradable, safe food storage; improving food storage techniques; food-waste avoidance; encouraging reuse and recycling; and cost savings, particularly for families on low incomes.

SAGE

Cook to Grow project - $28,800

The Cook to Grow project will provide workshops for young consumers aged between 18 and 24 years. The interactive workshops will teach participants all aspects of the food cycle, from planning meals to food purchasing and preparation. The workshops will also encompass growing your own food, so that young people are skilled in all dimensions of food planning, purchase, growing and eating their own produce.

Cowra Information & Neighbourhood Centre Inc.

Cook smart, waste less, save more - $5,000

Cowra Information and Neighbourhood Centre is running a 6-week education program for families with children under 16. The program will teach parents about meal planning, writing a list and shopping to it, using leftovers and safe food storage. At the end of the program parents will be equipped with skills to reduce food waste in the home.

Hunter Councils Inc.

Love food on campus - $60,516

This project will work with students who are living on campus at the University of Newcastle to better understand the barriers and benefits of food-waste avoidance among young consumers. A series of focus groups is being held to find out what students are buying, eating, cooking and wasting and what motivates them to change their practices. This research will be used to inform the development of 3 cooking demonstrations on campus at the student accommodation. The project also includes waste audits, development of tools and resources, behavioural surveys, the production of videos and awareness raising events within the student community.

Lake Macquarie City Council

Healthy Lunch Boxes program - $21,953

Lake Macquarie Council’s Healthy Lunch Boxes program is an engaging 6-week program targeted at families with young children. The program, which is based on the ‘You’re kidding me’ platform, will teach parents and carers how to make healthy, affordable and waste-free lunches for their children. Parents will see a reduction not only in the amount of food waste they generate but also in their grocery bills.

Macarthur Regional Organisation of Councils (MACROC)

Macarthur Food Project - $27,400

The Macarthur Food Project teaches residents food-waste avoidance skills through a series of cooking clinics. The clinics will provide attendees with hands-on experience on avoiding food waste through the full life cycle of a meal, including thoughtful purchasing, storage, portion size and using up leftovers. Participants will also learn how to cook a simple nutritional meal and then be asked to ‘teach a friend’.

North East Waste

Love Food Hate Waste challenge phase 2 - $34,110

North East Waste is expanding its highly successful Love Food Hate Waste challenge to include 14 cooking workshops across its 7 local-government areas. Six cooking demonstrations are being held at 3 of the region’s food/sustainability events where householders will learn food-waste avoidance techniques, such as proper food storage, using leftovers and menu planning.

Sustainable North West

Sustainable North West 2016 series of events - $19,500

Sustainable North West will be using Love Food Hate Waste as its theme for 2016. The organisation will encourage north-west NSW communities to gain an understanding of local produce and its production to increase the efficient and healthy use of the entire product, reducing waste at all stages of the food’s purchase and use. Love Food Hate Waste will be integrated into a series of events and workshops for different target audiences in partnership with North West Local Land Services and Northern Inland Regional Waste.

Total Environment Centre Inc.

Tackling food waste at farmers markets and festivals - $69,794

The Total Environment Centre is working with the Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology to develop a toolkit for festival and farmers’ market stallholders. The toolkit will contain information that will help stallholders reduce food waste at events. The tool kit will be piloted at the Pyrmont Festival in May 2016 before being made available for use at all festivals and farmers’ markets.

Winmalee Neighbourhood Centre

Nutritious oddities and other food facts - $23,287

Winmalee Neighbourhood Centre will take householders on a journey into food facts that will increase knowledge and skills while raising the awareness in communities of food waste. The education and hands on workshops will provide real strategies to address not only minimising food waste but enhancing physical and financial wellbeing.

Wollondilly Shire Council

Food Wise in Wollondilly and Wingecarribee - $24,330

Food Wise in Wollondilly and Wingecarribee is a series of educational workshops to raise awareness about food waste. Participants will learn about the food-waste issue and tools for reducing food waste at home. Participants will be encouraged to inspire each other by teaching family and friends what they have learnt at the workshops. This project links with other environmental programs run by Wollondilly and Wingecarribee Councils to provide residents with a holistic approach to waste management.

Western Sydney Regional Organisation of Councils (WSROC)

Shop. Cook. Save. - $38,420

Shop. Cook. Save. involves engaging pop-up stalls being run at 7 major council events across Western Sydney to attract young families and encourage them to take part in a ‘selfie pledge’ to shop to a list. Social media competitions will increase the reach of the project to promote positive messages around the health, financial and environmental benefits of reducing food waste.

Canada Bay Council

Eat, taste, create: a $ave More Waste Less Initiative - $26,810

This project will work with food-related businesses from different cultural backgrounds across the Canada Bay local-government area to help them reduce food waste. Activities will highlight what local businesses are doing in their own kitchens and link to cultural events such as the Chinese Moon Festival and Good Food and Wine Month. Local chefs will also share their tips and success stories to help other businesses reduce their food waste. Recipes from the events will be accessible and promoted on City of Canada Bay’s website with tips, local growers’ markets and waste-focused workshops.

Cessnock City Council

Food-business waste minimisation: SME education project - $35,042

Council will work with 30 small-to-medium food-related businesses to help them cut their food waste in half. The resources will be made available to environmental health officers across the region to help other businesses do the same.

Illawarra Area Child Care

Growing young food lovers - $30,184

Illawarra Area Childcare will work with families with young children to provide tailored, personalised learning opportunities to avoid food waste. The project will be delivered in three parts: (a) a toolkit available to 720 families; (b) a workshop series; and (c) personalised mentoring for 150 families. Each stage will provide families with a more in-depth knowledge of food-waste avoidance principles and behaviours around shopping, preparing and storing food.

Inverell Shire Council

Creating a community of food waste warriors at Inverell - $31,317

Council will inspire the community to reduce food waste and increase skills in food-waste avoidance by leading a multifaceted project based on comprehensive community engagement. This includes a fortnightly radio show, a monthly column in Inverell’s newspaper and a flagship event with a ‘pop-up kitchen’ featuring celebrity chef Mark Olive during the annual Sapphire City Festival. Each of these activities will teach residents about food waste and the simple actions they can take to avoid it.

NetWaste

Healthy meals that do not cost the Earth - $17,401

NetWaste will work with residents in the Bathurst Regional and Dubbo City council areas to help them avoid food waste. Residents will be able to take part in interactive cooking workshops where they will learn about shopping to a list, using leftovers and how best to store food to make it last longer.

Pittwater Council

Leftovers to Lunch Box - $8050

Leftovers to Lunch Box is a fun and inspiring education project engaging council employees and their families. Central to the project is the 10-week Leftovers to Lunch Box challenge, which includes 4 interactive pop-up cooking demonstrations, a recipe competition and the production of a handy cook book. Weekly hints and motivational emails will be used to encourage participants to adopt new actions to reduce food waste at home and at work. The end of challenge will be celebrated at council’s annual Wellbeing Expo where participants will be rewarded with their ‘golden’ lunch box prize and opportunities to share their new skills with others.

Riverina Eastern Regional Organisation of Councils (REROC)

Food2Take - $18,920

The Food2Take project will develop a food donation initiative in the area which will connect businesses that have surplus edible food with not-for-profit organisations that distribute the food to those in need. This project will also include the development of a system of automatic alerts to notify recipients that donated food is available for collection. Both donors and recipients will receive one-on-one training to help them with reducing food waste.

Youth Food Movement

#FIRL: food in real life workshops - $69,960

Youth Food Movement (YFM) will educate young consumers via day-long workshops where participants will be given the skills to educate others about food-waste avoidance. This train-the-trainer style initiative will see YFM support workshop attendees to rollout approximately 60 satellite events around Sydney, create a package of online resources (e-handbook, food skills videos and showreels) that empower young people to make a difference in their community and share positive stories online through an active and colourful social-media presence.

Canada Bay Council

Waste Less, $ave More: food-waste avoidance for food businesses - $17,945

Waste Less, $ave More is a food-waste avoidance project developed by Canada Bay Council targeting local food retail businesses. The project will promote best practice in food-waste avoidance as well as highlighting real life tips from business owners who have successfully reduced their food waste. Achievements from this project will be showcased at a pop-up event in Rhodes Shopping Centre and at 2 major street festivals.

Ethnic Communities Council of NSW Inc.

Ethnic communities’ Love Food Hate Waste project - $26,400

The Ethnic Communities Council of NSW Sustainable Living Program will expand its successful Love Food Hate Waste workshop series to include the Cantonese, Vietnamese and Mandarin communities. The current online multicultural cookbook featuring recipes from workshop participants will be also expanded to include these languages. Further culturally relevant information will be incorporated into materials such as fact sheets and videos that will further help communities to reduce their food waste.

FoodCare Orange Inc.

Love Food Hate Waste with FoodCare Orange Inc. - $13,140

FoodCare Orange Inc. supports local disadvantaged families and individuals to access good-quality affordable food. This project will involve a series of interactive workshops that will be offered to existing and potential clients. Workshop participants will learn key Love Food Hate Waste behaviours such as careful shopping, meal planning, food storage and using leftovers.

Hunter Councils Inc.

Better business through Love Food Hate Waste industry training - $50,595

The Hunter group of councils will develop a pilot hospitality-training program that incorporates the key principles of Love Food Hate Waste. Course content will be developed by industry and will be incorporated into selected Certificate 3 Cookery Units. Content will focus on the economic and environmental benefits of avoiding food waste and will include a series of videos and other materials.

Lake Macquarie City Council

Bust Your Household Food Bills project - $69,998

Lake Macquarie City Council will survey residents in the 8 surrounding council areas to determine their knowledge, attitudes and behaviours towards food waste. The council will also run a Food Waste Avoidance Challenge where households receive a resources kit to help them save on their grocery bill and reduce their food waste.

Lord Howe Island Board

How to turn food waste around on Lord Howe Island - $20,509

The Lord Howe Island Board will develop a food-waste avoidance education program for businesses on the island. Businesses will attend a workshop where they will learn the key principles associated with food-waste avoidance and also be supported by one-on-one sessions.

North East Waste

North East Waste Love Food Hate Waste education and media program - $33,000

North East Waste’s grant project will build on its highly successful Love Food Hate Waste program which has been running since 2011. The program will involve 3 main aspects: (1) a television advertising campaign to be aired on regional television; (2) face-to-face community engagement, including conducting performances at events; and (3) focus groups, which will be used to tailor the North East Waste’s Love Food Hate Waste project to local communities.

University of Technology Sydney

Formal education initiatives and public events for TAFE and UTS students - $69,795

Partnering with TAFE, the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) will develop educational materials aimed at teaching tertiary students about food-waste avoidance. These materials will be published on the Learning and Teaching Sustainability website where they can be accessed by more than 300 tertiary educators. In addition, UTS and TAFE will run mobile kitchen demonstrations during Good Food Month 2014 and a mystery-basket cooking competition will be held as part of Green Week 2015.

Wollongong City Council

Love Food Hate Waste workshops: aware, adapt, life-changing skills - $35,315

Wollongong City Council will work with Illawarra Shoalhaven Local Health District Health Promotion Service and Healthy Cities Illawarra to train Stir It Up volunteers to help deliver Love Food Hate Waste workshops. Once trained, volunteers will run workshops for families involved in local play groups, scouting groups and as part of Wollongong City Council’s district library school holidays workshops. Workshops will feature food-waste avoidance behaviours such as menu planning, writing a shopping list and correct food storage.

Wyong Shire Council

Eat Well, Spend Less, Save More: family food and reducing waste - $20,100

Wyong Shire Council’s Eat Well, Spend Less, Save More project aims to provide families with resources that will help them improve their cooking skills, reduce food waste and save money. In addition to the resource kit, factsheets and displays, the project includes other Love Food Hate Waste topics such as planning meals, how much to purchase, using leftovers and food storage.