A huge ka pai and a message for island businesses.
The Kai Cafe has now been up and running since April: in that time we have made hundreds and hundreds of meals for our community with the help of local businesses who donate food stuffs at or just past their sell by date, goods that have damaged packaging, bruised or misshapen fruit and veggies, excess crops, dented canned veggies and milk products and more. We have also been given frozen bread from Francos bakery, rice and lentils from The Island Grocer and Gulf Foods, many items from Countdown and products from Sophia’s Choice. Extra food has arrived from vineyard restaurants and lots of local gardeners have popped in to give us their extra crops. Those leaving on holiday have donated the leftovers from their fridges and our diners have added the odd coin to buy extra oils, and basics.
All this rescued food has gone into humans not landfill and any scraps left over have fed our bokashi, compost and worm farms.
We never know what we will get on a Friday but so far our meals have fed on average around 40 people a week: our guests and cooks come from everywhere, some with babes in arms and toddlers, teens, our wonderful international woofers, workers and holiday makers plus many retirees and passerbys. Everyone helps and chats to others, everyone gets a good meal made with love and kindness.
We talk, mingle, learn, share, eat and make music. Some of our dishes have been scintillating and tasty to the extreme while others have been slightly sabotaged by our less than reliable oven – all have been invented on the spot and mostly we are proud and happy to have saved this food and helped gift it back to our people.
A wonderful Cafe flag has been made by local artist Nora West (which we can’t get down, due to a knotty problem – any coconut or flagpole climbers welcome to assist us in this problem) and we are really enjoying meeting our island community. It’s also an educational thing: we learn loads of stuff each week by trying out new ideas and recipes.
We need you to feed you!
We think we are on to a good thing but we know it’s really just the tip of the food waste iceberg on our lovely island so please you have something you would like to donate, give us a text on 021 2421549 or ring us at the office 2915, pm us via fb at Kai Conscious or The Waiheke Sustainability Centre. Ask for Carys or Kathy to come take your foodie bits and bobs: a lot of people will be happy to be fed up with it!\
For reasons of health and safety we can not take raw or cooked meat products but everything else is covered under the Samaritan Act with no liability to those who donate foodstuffs.
