radio - Qantas

Talking Business with ITA BUTTROSE
34
Ronni
Kahn
is the founder of OzHarvest,
a service that collects and
delivers surplus food to
charities. She originally ran
an events business and was
horrified by the amount of
left-over food that was thrown
out. She then turned this
observation to a business in
2004. Today, OzHarvest has
over 600 food donors and
delivers more than 110,000
meals each month to 163
charities in Sydney, Canberra
and Wollongong. Ronni joins
the show to discuss her
recent award for Australia’s
Local Hero 2010 and the
massive victory had when
her perseverance caused the
law to be changed in NSW,
ACT, QLD, SA (and soon will
be in WA) to ensure that food
donors are safe from liability.
www.ozharvest.org.au
IB Australia’s local hero of the year for 2010, Ronni Kahn,
originally ran an events business and was so appalled by
the amount of food wasted by the hospitality industry that
she set up OzHarvest, a not-for-profit organisation that
rescues unwanted food from restaurants, retailers, food
outlets and corporate kitchens across Sydney, Canberra
and Wollongong to feed communities in need. She arrived
in Australia as an immigrant from Israel in 1988 and is an
inspirational success story.
Thank you for joining us on Talking Business, Ronni.
RK Thank you so much for having me.
IB Did you ever envisage, when you first arrived here in 1988,
that you’d be honoured as one of Australia’s local heroes?
RK Not in my wildest dreams could I have even begun to
contemplate that such a thing would happen, no.
IB Has it been life-changing?
RK Actually it has, in a way that I could never have ever
imagined really. It’s changed the profile of OzHarvest and
turned us into a brand with major brand recognition because
we’ve had so much publicity. But it has actually also
done that for my own profile, which is something that was
certainly never part of plan, my life plan.
IB But life has a habit of taking us by surprise.
RK Absolutely.
IB Where did you get the idea for OzHarvest?
RK Seeing as my background is hospitality and I used to
put on so many events, in fact my last one was just a couple
of weeks ago, I kept seeing that there was food left over,
because, as an event producer, I always wanted to make
sure there was plenty of food. But the last thing I wanted was
at my events that we would run out of food, there’s nothing
worse than standing around at an event and thinking you’re
going to die of starvation and have to go somewhere else
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QANTAS INFLIGHT ENTERTAINMENT | JUNE 2010