A Decade of Making a Difference - 10 years of Satisfy, our founder Phillipa’s Reflection

Founder and Chairperson, Phillipa Hunt

It has been well over ten years now since I had a light bulb moment about setting up an organisation to redirect food waste.  It all began back in May 2013 whilst reading a magazine article about food rescue that focused on Kaibosh in Wellington and City Harvest in New York City. The article quoted a 2011 study by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations that estimated that a third of all food produced for human consumption goes to waste.  That statistic just floored me.  I couldn’t believe it, what it meant was that we actually have enough food on our planet to feed everyone well and the problem is we are not stewarding and treasuring the food resources we have.  People are going hungry from not getting this food and food waste is inflicting a huge environmental toll on the planet.  It really seemed like a problem we shouldn’t be having.  Then to read about the inspiring stories from City Harvest and Kaibosh, their work showed brilliant and simple way to help address the problem. Food rescue married together beautifully helping the planet and helping people - I was hooked.

After thinking about the concept of food rescue for several months, followed by talking to various people and organisations, myself along with Nicki Carter from Wellbeing North Canterbury called a public meeting in March 2014 to discuss the possibility of setting up a food rescue organisation in North Canterbury.  The meeting was held at Kaiapoi Community Support (KCS) which was to become our first base of operations.

What followed was 15 months of hard work to get a new organisation off the ground.  We had all the connections we needed to recipient organisations due to Nicki’s contacts in the social sector.  What I didn’t expect though was how hard it would be to secure our first food donation.  I figured that since there was so much food being wasted it would be easy.  Thanks to the persistent work of Cushla Fitzgibbon we finally got our first donation on 17th June 2015.  It was 288 kgs of juice from Frucor; 20 boxes of 3L bottles of orange juice and 10 boxes of 125ml bottles of blackcurrant juice.  Not quite the healthy fruit and veges I was expecting but it was a start!

Over the next few months we received ad hoc donations from Frucor, Reality Bites cafe, Veg’nOut produce store in Woodend, Zeagold eggs, Linda McCartney Foods, and domestic donations of apples, pumpkins and rhubarb from local gardens.

Since we were initially receiving very modest donations, I did all the collecting or receiving of all the food myself.  Most of the food went directly to Kaiapoi Community Support since we were sharing their space, specifically their kitchen, at 166 Williams Street (two doors down from where we are located now).  Any remaining food I delivered to a few other recipient organisations including Karanga Mai and the Person to Person Trust/Kaiapoi Baptist Church.

Our first regular food donor was PAK’nSAVE Rangiora who we began working with not long after they opened.  This is when things really changed!  We started collecting twice a week on Mondays and Thursdays in November 2015.  The first collection was Monday 2nd November 2015, where we collected 374 kgs of produce and bread.  The second collection on Thursday was only 21 kg!  The PAK’nSAVE collections were initially completed by myself and a couple of the other Trustee/Committee members; in particular Merv Jakes, Tina Thorpe and Sheree Gibbs.  We also had some volunteers start, a couple of which are still with us - Glenys Ralph and Rosemary Frew. We also had help sorting the food from the KCS volunteers.

With the additional food, new recipient organisations joined us including the Bishopdale Reformed Church (Latimer Square Soup Kitchen) and Hope Community Trust.

Quantities for 2015:

June	288 kgs
July	248 kgs
August	44 kgs
September	520 kgs
October	55 kgs
November*	1,193 kgs
December	520 kgs

* PAK’nSAVE collections start

In December 2015 we purchased a walk-in chiller with funds from the ANZ Staff Foundation and in early 2016 we started collecting three times per week from PAK’nSAVE.  Things ticked along in 2016 and when 2017 rolled around a whole lot of stuff started changing.  It started when Stef Van Meer came on board in March 2017 as our first paid employee in the role of coordinator.  Then at the end of April we took on collecting from three Countdowns five days a week.  This was a massive jump in our operations and quite overwhelming.  We took over the KCS meeting room as well as the kitchen and in June we hired our first paid driver, Phil Minton and employed Michelle Campbell as administration support.  In July New World Kaiapoi started donating to us too.

We were starting to feel like we were outstaying our welcome at KCS and I felt very badly for the condition of the carpet in the meeting room!  Just as well there was a plan under way and at the end of August 2017 we moved along with KCS to the newly outfitted social services hub at 24 Sewell Street, Kaiapoi.

The next big event for Satisfy was purchasing a van in June 2018, until then Phil and volunteers used their own vehicles to pick up the food.  This was a game changer and it was also fun to see our bright green sign written vehicle travelling the streets of Kaiapoi and Rangiora.

We released our fancy new website in July 2019 but it wasn’t until 2020 that things went up another notch.  As everyone knows, 2020 was a crazy year globally and it was also an insane year for Satisfy.  It started ramping up even before the pandemic hit our shores with us attending the founding hui for the Aotearoa Food Rescue Alliance (AFRA) in early March.  Then COVID-19 lockdowns slammed us all.  Food rescue was considered an essential activity so we had to pivot our operations to keep everyone safe, with the bulk of the work falling on just a few people.  It became painfully clear during this time that our premises were far too small.  We were utilising the car park and the community centre hall way, and at times the Darnley Club to store and distribute food.

The pandemic highlighted the importance of food security nationally and with that we were part of a group to establish Food Secure North Canterbury (FSNC).  We were subsequently successful with a grant from the Ministry of Social Development for both Satisfy and FSNC initiatives.  This allowed us to employ more staff with Cameron Crawley joining us in October as our operations coordinator and Stef moving into the role of manager.  At the end of October 2020 we moved into our current location. 

That same year, we became a hub for the New Zealand Food Network and began receiving regular deliveries of bulk food. We also began our valued harvest collaboration partnership with the Oxford & District Lions Club, and received their first donation of freshly grown produce before Christmas 2021. 

The extra space our new premises afforded us was hugely valued as during 2021/22 Satisfy nearly doubled its food distributions, a significant scale-up which was in response to growing community need. Our staff team was also growing with Brian K and Michelle N joining the team to share our driver role. Fran, who was one of our dedicated volunteers, became a welcome addition to our office team, working hard on our funding and communications. 

Throughout 2022 and 2023 we were regularly rescuing approximately 20 tonnes of food per month, helped by our new EV van, and expanded to seven new stores by the end of the financial year. Our partnership with food rescue friends Kairos was strengthened when the Foodbank Canterbury closure at the end of 2023 meant that we worked together to grow Satisfy’s operation with regular supermarket collections from Christchurch stores. 

At this crucial moment the Meridian Community Decarbonisation Fund enabled the purchase of a second EV, improving operational efficiency and allowing us to rescue even more food. Our team grew again, with the addition of Belinda and Vicky in the warehouse as Ops Support and bringing extra relief drivers on board to strengthen our team. 

The past few years have been full of change, hard work, and steady growth - food distribution volumes today average 40 tonnes per month with no sign of things slowing.  It’s incredible to reflect on how far we’ve come, from a single rescue of juice to a thriving, community-led movement to reduce food waste and nourish our region.