Stuff Digital Edition

Halloween lollies dished out to Waikato families

Chloe Blommerde

More than half a tonne of Halloween candy that didn’t sell has been saved from the landfill and given to Waikato families.

Go Eco Food Rescue – Kaivolution picked up a massive haul of lollies and cookies which The Warehouse stores in Te Awamutu, Te Kū iti, Cambridge and Hamilton didn’t sell due to Covid-19.

The region’s six weeks in lockdown left some stores with ‘‘a lot of lollies that we weren’t able to sell in time’’, a spokesperson for The Warehouse said.

More than 50,000 bags of lollies were donated across New Zealand.

The Warehouse did the same with Easter eggs in April 2020, during the level 4 lockdown.

This time, seven pallets – holding up to 20 boxes each – and boxes of individually wrapped lollies were donated to Waikato food rescue organisation Kaivolution and sent to free stores in the city for families to enjoy.

After a heads-up on November 18, Kaivolution staff flew into action the next day, training and development coordinator Anna Casey-Cox said.

All treats were delivered by Kaivolution’s staff members, Tash Beazley and Keriana Houia, by the weekend.

Families are prioritising milk, bread and eggs, Casey-Cox said, so access to treats is nice.

Kaivolution is run under the Waikato Environment Centre and aims to stop edible food from being thrown away by redirecting it to communities.

‘‘Our whole mission is to stop waste going to landfill, and seeing individually wrapped lollies at an environment centre goes against our focus,’’ Casey-Cox said.

‘‘There were hundreds of plastic pumpkins.’’

It’s another example of a broken system, she said, but Kaivolution was able to respond to The Warehouse almost immediately – something big operators require – and save the treats from the landfill.

Typically, Kaivolution picks up perfectly edible food from supermarkets, food growers and producers and redistributes it to selected charities and community centres in Hamilton.

Charities give the food to people in their networks and Kaivolution free stores make food available to anyone who wishes to save it from going to waste. Food rescue is Go Eco’s largest climate action project. In 2020, it rescued 476,000kgs of food and redistributed it around Waikato.

‘‘A lot of kai would be going to landfill if we weren’t here, it’s making a big difference,’’ Casey-Cox.

Waikato Times Weekend

en-nz

2021-11-27T08:00:00.0000000Z

2021-11-27T08:00:00.0000000Z

https://stuff.pressreader.com/article/281668258246583

Stuff Limited