Things are looking up for sustainability across the ditch. New Zealand start up Rescued has teamed up with supermarket Countdown (the New Zealand equivalent of Woolworths) to combat food waste.

Rescued’s mission is “to lead New Zealand to a zero-food-waste-to-landfill future”.

What it has found is that rescued bread flour “gives surplus bread a new and long life, becoming the hero ingredient of baking mixes, cookies, cakes, crackers, muffins, and more”.

And this is what it is doing with Countdown. Rescued uses leftover bread from Countdown’s bakeries to create simple vanilla, lemon and gin botanicals, chocolate, and savoury baking mixes. These mixes are then sold on Countdown’s shelves, completing the sustainability cycle.

Rescued’s products are currently stocked in four Countdown stores across New Zealand.

Diane Stanbra, founder of Rescued, told Inside FMGC, “When we first began our journey to tackle food waste in Aotearoa through upcycling, one of our biggest goals was to be selling our products in the same place we’re rescuing from.”

Steve Mills, commercial director of packaged goods for Countdown, told Inside FMGC, “The nature of fresh food and serving over 3 million customers a week means that some level of waste is inevitable. To make sure as little as possible is ending up in landfill, we have a policy of donating food that’s still fit for consumption but can’t be sold.”

This is not the first time this year that Countdown has been involved in efforts to reduce its impact on the environment.

In August, the retail giant bankrolled New Zealand’s first Zero Food Waste Challenge, which kicked off in September. The purpose of the challenge was also to tackle the growing issue of food waste and encourage others to do the same