OzHarvest’s Ronni Kahn celebrating International Women’s Day in Canberra

Posted on 16 February, 2022

Ronni Kahn has changed the way we look at food—helping us confront the very uncomfortable truth of just how much of it we waste.

The founder of OzHarvest will deliver the Women in Media National Press Club Address on March 9, to celebrate International Women’s Day.

In the address, entitled “On Purpose: Believe, Discover, Give”, Ronni will discuss her journey as a social entrepreneur, change-maker, disruptor, activist, food waste guru and CEO of OzHarvest—all things that her eight year old self would never have believed possible

In the early 2000’s Ronni wined and dined Sydney’s elite through her events management company. But she became increasingly disturbed by the volume of food waste she confronted after each event.

She came up with a renegade solution to hand-deliver the untouched food to homeless people around Sydney before cementing her idea into the national food rescue organisation OzHarvest in 2004.

She is a vocal campaigner on the international stage to cut food waste by 50 per cent by 2030.

Each year Each year Australia wastes an average of 7.3 million tonnes of food, costing the the average Australian family between $1500-$3000 and the national economy $20 billion each year.

Since it’s inception, OzHarvest has rescued 70,000 tonnes of food from ending up in landfill and delivered more than 200 million meals. Along the way, Ronni has had to challenge and change government red tape relating to food donations so that her trademark yellow collection vans can now go freely about their food collection and distributions.

“Each and every one of us has a role to play,” Ronni said.

“Not all of us can drive an electric vehicle or become climate activists, but in our own homes we can be mindful of what we buy, we can use what we buy and we can make shopping lists to save money and stop waste.”

Her National Press Club address will examine the issue of food waste as well as recount Ronni’s experiences growing up in Apartheid South Africa and living in a socialist commune in Israel and a relationship with a conman which helped her cement her true purpose in life as a social entrepreneur.

Her inspirational journey of discovery includes valuable life-lessons in self-belief, accepting imperfection, finding purpose and fixing a problem.

On giving the Press Club’s International Women’s Day Address, Ronni said she found it “quite shocking on one level that we need a day to stand up and make the message clear (about the role women play in society). But on the other hand, we need this day until such time as we achieve gender parity and equality. Unfortunately I don’t think that day is close.”