Between the paddock and the plate (if it even makes it that far), one-third of the food produced for Australians is wasted.
Most waste occurs in the early stages of food production but retail waste would shock and disgust most of us.
But then, so too would the idea of salvaging that food once it’s hit the bin.
"The food I eat is in plastic bags, and ten minutes before I come and pick it up, it was sitting on the top shelf.”
Julianne Brady has a higher yuck tolerance than most. “The misconceptions are that you’d only dumpster dive if you were desperate, says Julianne, “and that the bins are full of maggots. The food I eat is in plastic bags, and ten minutes before I come and pick it up, it was sitting on the top shelf.”
“After all these years, I am still absolutely shocked when I open a bin and it’s full of reusable food,” she says. “You don’t know why the food is thrown out. Sometimes it’s just because they have over-ordered and need to make room for new stock.”
Julianne’s daughter, Skye, used to question her mum’s late-night skirmishes. But when her mum started to bring home the bacon (actually it was Wagyu beef), Skye was won over.
“We are taught to reduce and reuse all the time. People go to op shops for second-hand clothing, but for whatever reason we are taught not to do that with food. But, if it’s still good, it should go to someone to feed them,” says Skye.
Julianne regularly delivers rescued food to friends and family. She says, “We can’t continually consume and discard as we are doing. I don’t have the power to do a lot, but I do have the power to take that little bit of food out of that bin, and re-use it.”
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