Food Fighter

Rebecca Varidel
27th Mar 2018

THE INSPIRATIONAL STORY OF ONE AUSTRALIAN WOMAN’S CRUSADE AGAINST THE GLOBAL SCANDAL OF FOOD WASTE

FOOD FIGHTER the inspirational story of one Australian woman’s crusade against the global scandal of food waste, will have its gala premiere at Sydney’s State Theatre on Sunday June 3rd, ahead of World Environment Day.

The invitation only premiere of the feature-length documentary will be followed by a cinema release around the country.

Ronni Kahn used to be a contributor to Australia’s annual $20 billion food waste bill when she ran a successful corporate events company producing million-dollar dinners. Then she realised the absurdity of throwing away perfectly edible food, trading capitalism for social activism by founding OzHarvest, a food rescue charity, in 2004.

OzHarvest is now Australia’s leading food rescue organisation, collecting over 100 tonnes of good food every week and delivering it to more than 1300 charities, making a positive impact on the lives of vulnerable men, women and children.

Filmed over two years and across four continents, FOOD FIGHTER follows Ronni’s crusade against the global food waste scandal, partnering with the United Nations in Bangkok, rubbing shoulders with British royalty and Jamie Oliver’s juggernaut in London, and holding the government to account in Australia.

FOOD FIGHTER is a Mint Pictures production, produced and directed by Dan Goldberg, with Executive Producers Adam Kay and Simon Nasht. It was produced with the assistance of Screen Australia.

The film’s trailer was launched today.

The startling facts about food waste:

In Australia

• The Government estimates food waste costs the Australian economy $20 billion each year

• 4 million tonnes of food ends up as landfill, enough to fill 8,400 Olympic sized swimming pools

• One in five shopping bags end up in the bin = $3,800 worth of groceries per household each year

• 35% of the average household bin is food waste

• 3.6 million people experienced food insecurity in the last year

• Over 650,000 people now receive food relief each month; one quarter are children

The World

• There is enough food produced in the world to feed everyone

• One third of all food produced is lost or wasted – around 1.3 billion tonnes of food – 
costing the global economy close to US $750 billion each year

• An estimated 795 million people go hungry every year

• If one quarter of the food currently lost or wasted could be saved, it would be enough to feed 870 million hungry people

• Almost half of all fruit and vegetables produced are wasted

• 8% of greenhouse gases heating the planet are caused by food waste

• If food waste was a country, it would be the third biggest emitter of greenhouse gases after USA and China

• Eliminating global food waste would save 4.4 million tonnes of CO2 a year – the equivalent 
of taking one in four cars off the road

• Throwing away one burger wastes the same amount of water as a 90-minute shower