FAQs - SecondBite
SecondBite Food Relief Charity Frequently asked questions

Frequently Asked Questions

If you question is not answered below, please email us at admin@secondbite.org or call 1800 263 283.

One in five – or five million – Australians are severely food insecure. This means that they often skip meals, have limited or uncertain access to quality, nutritious food, or go a day without eating.

Meanwhile, Australia wastes more than 7.6 billion kilos of food each year. Of this food, 70% is edible. Put simply, this waste would fill semi-trailers stretching from Perth to Sydney. And cost the Australian economy $36.6 billion. SecondBite exists to solve both of these social issues.

SecondBite is the largest food rescue organisation in Australia – delivering food free of charge. We work with almost 1,100 charity partners, more than 1,500 food donors and thousands of generous financial supporters to feed millions of hungry Australians each year. SecondBite rescues and repurposes food in every state and territory of Australia, and each year we provide more than 50 million meals to hungry Australians.

SecondBite is Australia’s largest food rescue organisation – delivering food free of charge. We work with food growers, manufacturers and retailers to rescue surplus and unsold edible food that would otherwise be sent to landfill and redistribute it to people who need it most.

By providing the rescued food free of charge, we enable charities to save their money and reinvest it in other services like health and wellbeing programs, counselling and financial relief services.

The organisations we work with make a real difference to people’s lives, providing more than just a meal – they provide support, hope and friendship to those doing it tough.

SecondBite can provide enough food for 5 meals with every $1 that’s donated to us because the farmers, manufacturers and retailers we work with, donate their surplus and unsold food to us for free. So, we don’t use the $1 donated to buy the food. We use the donations to run an efficient food collection and distribution service: for vehicles like trucks and vans to transport the food (plus fuel, vehicle servicing etc.); warehouses to store the food; equipment like forklifts and pallets to move the food; as well as systems and people. Every dollar that’s donated enables us to collect and distribute up to 2.5kgs of food. We allow for 500 grams of food per meal: making this $1 donated = 5 meals.

More than 75% of agencies connected to SecondBite have told us they’re seeing a cumulative increase in food relief demand, with many people citing rent and utility bills as particularly difficult to manage. Financial prioritisation has seen parents miss meals so their children can eat, and pensioners skip food so they can keep their heating on.

Additionally, almost three in five of our agencies receive no external funding from government, meaning that if we can’t supply enough to them they either have to finance it themselves or send people away hungry.

Families in employment who have never previously required support are among the new faces of food insecure Australians. There is a growing assertion among charity agencies that today almost any Australian could find themselves food insecure given any set of adverse circumstances.

SecondBite receives funding from a range of sources, including government, corporates, trusts and foundations and individuals. While we currently rescue approximately 25 million kilograms a year, we know that our country produces enough food to feed 75 million people, and that approximately 35 per cent of the food grown for human consumption in Australia is wasted. We can’t keep up with demand at the moment and we don’t expect to see any respite for some time, but with greater funding to expand our fleet of vehicles and our warehouse capacity, we would be able to come closer to addressing this growing issue.

SecondBite coordinates and distributes rescued food in two main ways:

1. Direct Delivery model where we collect food directly from donors, aggregate the food at our warehouses, sort, pack and distribute the food to charities.

2. Community Connect model where we connect local charities and not-for-profits to collect food directly from donors such as Coles and Nando’s. We schedule the collections and manage the relationship between donors and charities.

Our team focuses on rescuing quality, nutritious food – including fruit and vegetables, pantry items, protein and dairy. We only deliver food that we would eat ourselves or would give to our own family members. We work with growers, manufacturers and supermarkets across Australia to collect this food.

You can find your nearest community food program offering food relief hampers, parcels or meals using our Food Finder.

SecondBite does not give food relief hampers, parcels or meals directly to individuals and families. We distribute food to charities and not for profit organisations that run food programs in their local community. You can find your nearest community food program using our Food Finder.

We have 75 staff and about 600 volunteers across the country.

  • Donate funds. Every dollar donated helps us deliver up to five meals to people in need
  • Donate food. We’d love to hear from retailers, manufacturers and farms with excess produce, looking to donate to those in need
  • Raise awareness. Talk to their friends and family about food rescue and the work that SecondBite does.
  • Follow us. Sign up for our newsletter, follow us on social media.