Waiheke Resources Trust has missed seeing the community at the tables of the Waiheke Sustainability Centre every Friday. Staff are delighted to announce that Kai Conscious Café is returning on the first day of spring. September 23rd will see the doors of the Café re-opening to the public with the opportunity to cook rescued food together from 11am, and then a community meal from 1pm. It’s a chance to meet old friends and make new ones.
Kai Conscious Café aims to bring people together for a delicious and nutritious meal using ingredients collected from their food rescue partners. Its goal is to divert kai from landfill and address food insecurity by rescuing food and teaching sustainable food management and strategies to minimise household food waste.
Kathy Voyles, who coordinates the Café with the help of the Kai Conscious food rescue team and volunteers, says, “We began this Friday gathering more than 5 years ago with an eye to using up food rescued from our main collection partner Countdown, but it quickly became more than that.
“It’s a place where young people mix with older community members, locals and tourists mingle, the odd love match ignites and internationals meet with many-generation Waihekeians.
“In short, Kai Café is a great place for conversation, social connectivity, for sharing knowledge or just a really good lunch.”
Staff are aware that Covid-19 and the flu are still circulating on Waiheke and so ask that everyone joining the Café wear a mask. As elsewhere, if you feel unwell please stay at home: the Café will be on every Friday so there’s always next week.
The Sustainability Centre kitchen has had an upgrade of two brand new commercial ovens (which the cooks are delighted with) plus a large fridge-freezer. This infrastructure was co-funded by the 2021 Te Pūtea Whakamauru Para (Waste Minimisation Fund), whose purpose is to boost Aotearoa’s waste minimisation performance. The fund, administered by the Ministry for the Environment, is enabled through the waste disposal levy. WRT is grateful to have received a portion in order to continue Kai Conscious Café, now better equipped and more sustainable for the long run.