Food rescue charity Nourished for Nil in Hastings, which redistributes hundreds of tonnes of food each year to the wider community, has had to beef up its security measures after food and equipment were stolen.
It was a hectic first day of the year for Nourished for Nil, and the demand keeps growing.
“In that first year, we did 70 tonne of food we rescued from landfill or pigs, and 2018 we did 327 tonnes, and last year in 2019 we did over 700 tonne,” Nikki Gardner, the charity's sustainability officer, says.
But some people take advantage of the goodwill.
“We got cameras in mainly because the batteries in our trucks were stolen and that was a huge loss of batteries and that threw us out for the whole week,” she says.
But it does not stop there, with people stealing bread from out of the premises or even re-selling food items on social media.
“If Watties or New World or someone sees their product being onsold, they’re going to stop giving it to us and all of this will go to the bin. It’s a lot of people that are going to go hungry and a lot of food that is going to the bin.”
The charity redistributes food from businesses that would have otherwise gone to landfill.
“People still think we do homeless and poor. We do people, so we don’t ask where you’re money’s gone, where you work, we’re too busy.”
They are open every weekday for one hour. With more than 70,000 people coming through last year, they need more infrastructure.
“Freezers for sure, we need someone to help pay the power, vehicles of course. We need warrants, we need regos, diesel miles, petrol. We’ve gone away from plastics bags, we need bags. This year we’re trying not to use serviettes so bring your own container.”
They say despite the setbacks, the work still goes on and they would like to open another branch in Napier.