We did a lot of searching for which charity we were going to donate our Waste Jar money to. Along the way we found so many amazing organisations who are working to reduce the amount of food waste on the planet. If you are looking to start your own waste jar, this is a great starting point to search for your charity.

Melbourne
http://secondbite.org/ SecondBite exists to provide access to fresh, nutritious food for people in need across Australia. They do this by rescuing and redistributing surplus fresh food, building community capacity in food skills and nutrition and advocating for an end to food insecurity.

http://www.foodbankvictoria.org.au/ Foodbank Victoria is an independent not for profit organisation that provides food relief to individuals and families experiencing hardship. With more than 80 years’ experience, they are the state’s oldest and largest food relief organisation.

http://www.fareshare.net.au/ FareShare rescues surplus quality food from businesses and volunteers cook it into 2,000 free nutritious meals for Victorian charities.

Australia
http://www.foodwise.com.au/ ‘FoodWise’ is DoSomething’s national campaign to reduce the environmental impact of Australia’s food consumption. They want Australians to become more educated and informed about the food that they eat. In short they want Australians to become FoodWise.

http://www.ozharvest.org/ OzHarvest is the first perishable food rescue organisation in Australia collecting quality excess food from commercial outlets and delivering it, direct and free of charge, to 500 charities providing much needed assistance to vulnerable men, women and children across Sydney, Adelaide, Brisbane, Gold Coast, Melbourne and Newcastle.

International
http://www.consciousconsumers.org.nz/ Surplus food is distributed to people in the community that need it most, rather than throwing leftover food into landfill.

http://www.fareshare.org.uk/ Over 1,200 charities benefit from FareShare food. These include breakfast clubs, women’s refuges and luncheon clubs for older people. These charities save on average £13,000 a year, which can be reinvested into other services.

http://foodcycle.org.uk/ At FoodCycle they want a world where communities unite so that no good food is wasted. FoodCycle builds communities by combining volunteers, surplus food and spare kitchen spaces to create nutritious meals for people at risk of food poverty and social isolation.

And while not a charity, we want to give a shout out to the British site www.lovefoodhatewaste.com, the name says it all.