KiwiHarvest has become well known in Aotearoa for its work in salvaging food heading for landfill from supermarkets, wholesalers, producers, cafes and restaurants and redistributing it to charities and social agencies.

This is because it’s estimated that New Zealand generates 103,000 tonnes of food waste annually, with 60 percent of that food going to landfill classified as edible.

It has also provided support to Everybody Eats, a pay-as-you-feel pop-up restaurant in Auckland that creates chef-cooked meals with food that otherwise would’ve gone to landfill.

The interactive report has been created by advertising agency J. Walter Thompson. As the reader works their way through the report that’s hosted on a website called ‘Read and Feed’, a ‘meals delivered’ tally counter in the bottom right corner ticks away, rising in numbers with each section read. At the time of writing, the meals delivered count was at 46.

KiwiHarvest CEO Deborah Manning says the goal for the company is to raise awareness of the work it’s been doing.

“Our success really lies in awareness. The more people know about the waste of good food in New Zealand, the more likely we will get support from industry leaders to get some real change happening,” she says.

“It’s estimated that the avoidable food waste would be enough to feed between 50,000 to 80,000 people for a whole year. That’s just staggering, especially when you consider more than 270,000 children in this country live in poverty.”

KiwiHarvest chair David Kirk and CEO Deborah Manning

J. Walter Thomson CEO Justin Barnes says the report helps KiwiHarvest raise awareness and funding, which is crucial to its survival.

“This highly innovative Read and Feed annual report cleverly solves both problems in one fell swoop, by providing recipients of the annual report with the magical ability to turn their simple act of reading into a charitable act of feeding,” Barnes says.

KiwiHarvest is predicting that through this interactive annual report, an extra 20,000 Kiwis will receive a meal. If you want to help contribute to this count, check out the report here.