EATS SunnyCoast

Most of us go food shopping each week and buy the ingredients we know we’ll use to make breakfast, fill school lunch boxes, or for the staple dinners we know how to prepare and that won’t get rejected by the fussier members of the family.

But for an ever-increasing number of Australians who are struggling to keep up with creeping mortage rates and crippling energy bills and fuel costs, the luxury of choosing what they put on the table is a thing of the past.

It’s estimated that in the past 12 months over two million households in Australia went hungry due to a lack of funds, sometimes skipping meals or going whole days without eating.

Demand for food relief is now higher than ever. In 2019, Foodbank estimated that 15% of Australians experiencing food insecurity were accessing food relief at least once a week. At the peak of the pandemic, that figured jumped to an alarming 31% - one in three households!

Food rescue charities have been overwhelmed over the past few years by people needing assistance just to ensure their kids don’t go to school or to bed hungry.

OzHarvest was born in 2004 with a vision to not only help feed those in need, but also to address the enormous issue of food waste in this country.

It’s a serious matter with food waste costing the Australian economy approximately $36.6 billion per year, with approximately 7.6 million tonnes of quality food finding its way to landfill.

Concerned by this growing trend, a small group of local volunteers, led by Michele Lipner, took on the challenge of building a network within their own community to tackle these issues, launching OzHarvest Sunshine Coast and Gympie in 2014.

They currently partner with food suppliers and recipients as far north as Gympie, down the coast to Caloundra and into the Sunshine Coast Hinterland. Food suppliers include local farmers markets, major supermarkets (including their national partner Woolworths), BP service stations, independent fruit and vegetable markets, local producers/farmers, bakeries, butchers and schools.

Nine years later, with the help of over 100 volunteers, they support 47 recipient organisations including schools, charities, community organisations and churches.

Since commencing operations, OzHarvest Sunshine Coast & Gympie has collected and redistributed approximately 800,000 kg of food – the equivalent of 2.2+ million meals.

Each month, this translates into anywhere from 15,000 – 18,000 kg of food being rescued and redistributed to their recipient agencies.

Michele Lipner, founding member and Coordinator of the local chapter, has been a driving force behind its success and growth for over close to a decade. Her passion and dedication to her community’s welfare, the environment, and for education around food waste saw her awarded Sunshine Coast Citizen of the Year in January.

In 2017, Michele identified a need for some sort of resource to help recipients of the food boxes they were being delivered get the most out of them –she could see that not everyone had the knowledge and experience to literally Ready, Steady, Cook a random bunch of provisions into a coherent meal, and that not everyone had seen a fennel bulb or cooked an eggplant before.

Over six years, she brought together a small group of dedicated local community members and volunteers with different skills to drive the development of a product that would be much more than a compilation of recipes.

Sunshine Coast University Bachelor ofDietetics and Bachelor of Nutrition students assisted with needs assessment, design and recipe testing, and everything from the photography, graphic design, even the hand-made ceramics used for styling recipes were donated to turn her dream into a reality.

The result is SunnyCoast Eats, a 100page collection of useful information about various ingredients that an OzHarvest recipient may receive or that you might find in the bottom of your fridge. Sorted alphabetically by ingredients, there’s also basic nutritional information and advice on how to store and cook them.

It also contains tips on how to reduce food waste at home; a problem that accounts for more than a third of the country’s food waste.

Of an initial print run of around 2,000 books, half of the books will be sold at a very reasonable price to cover the cost of production and to fund the donation of the rest to those who need it most in a ‘buy one, gift one’ philosophy.

SunnyCoast Eats can be purchased online or direct from OzHarvest Sunshine Coast with proceeds going back into OzHarvest Sunshine Coast & Gympie to support its operations.

With 53 easy-to-make and budget friendly recipes that champion local ingredients along with tips on kitchen basics, food swaps and reducing food waste at home; it’s sure to be a muchloved go-to guide, whether you are a kitchen novice or pro.

SunnyCoast Eats is a labour of love, and the result of hundreds of dedicated hours by local OzHarvest volunteers and community members passionate about food, reducing food waste and helping