To help vulnerable Australians, Woolworths Group has boosted funding to its hunger relief partners to deliver 13 million additional meals.
The additional injection is 100 per cent funded by Woolworths as a corporate donation of $9 million across Australia and New Zealand.
As part of the group’s food diversion initiative, food relief partners including Foodbank, OzHarvest and FareShare have been collecting excess edible food from Woolworths supermarkets and distribution centres and donating it to people in need in the past year.
According to Woolworths data, about 40 per cent of Australians are struggling to make ends meet, with some stating that they are skipping meals as a result.
“Our supermarkets donate excess food to local charities each week, however with more people experiencing food insecurity for the first time, it’s clear that more is needed to provide immediate relief,” said Brad Banducci, Woolworths Group CEO.
“For us, this additional donation is an opportunity to ‘feed it forward’ and support the households most in need of a helping hand right now,” said Banducci.
Foodbank Australia CEO, Brianna Casey, said: “Demand for food relief has never been higher, and we’re preparing as best we can for more and more people to need our help – or to need it more often.”
To support regional and remote Indigenous communities with almost 200,000 extra meals, funding will also be allocated to FareShare’s Meals for the Mob program as well as the Australian Literacy and Numeracy Foundation’s school breakfast program.
The group has also launched a new initiative – Reducing Food Waste and Hunger – which will work to ensure more food will go from farm to fridge instead of ending up in landfill.
