The Food Relief Triangle, part one

SecondBite, Foodbank and OzHarvest are the three big names in Australian food relief. Ask someone what the difference is and you'll usually get a shrug.We call them the Food Relief Triangle, and we set out to visit all three and report back. They're doing different jobs with the same intent, and the differences turn out to matter. This is the first of the three.

Three names, and most people can't tell them apart

We visited in January 2026. SecondBite's WA operation had moved to a new facility in Kewdale, a serious step up from the old Belmont site, and we were shown around by Lyndon Nilsson, SecondBite's WA State Manager, who has been with the organisation for over a decade.A bigger building sounds unremarkable until you think about what food relief actually needs:<ul><li>Capacity to take in far more food at once.</li><li>Proper cold-storage infrastructure, which is what decides whether fresh produce can be accepted at all.</li><li>Enough reach to serve communities right across WA rather than a few suburbs.</li></ul>Cold storage is the quiet one on that list. Without it you can only take food that keeps, which rules out most of what a supermarket or a produce market has spare.

A bigger shed is not a small thing

SecondBite collects surplus food, largely with its own fleet, from major donors including supermarkets and fresh produce markets. That food is sorted and repacked at a facility like Kewdale, then distributed to local relief agencies who know their own communities far better than any central organisation could.So <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://secondbite.org/">SecondBite</a> is a middle layer rather than a front door. It very rarely hands food to an individual. It moves food in bulk to the organisations that do.And it gives all of it away. No charge to the agencies, no charge to the people who end up eating it.

How the SecondBite model works

That was what we most wanted to ask. If you run a fleet of refrigerated trucks and a warehouse full of cold storage, somebody is paying for it.The answer is that the two halves are funded separately. The food is donated rather than bought, so it costs nothing to acquire. The operation around it, the trucks, the fuel, the staff, the refrigeration, is paid for by a mix of corporate partners, grants, trusts and foundations, and individual donors.<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://secondbite.org/become-a-corporate-partner/coles/">Coles has been the largest of those partners since 2011, </a>contributing both food and money. SecondBite's own figures put the Coles contribution for FY25 at the equivalent of 37.9 million meals, with Coles appeals raising more than $3.1 million on top.Grants do the heavy lifting on infrastructure. The Perth warehouse fit-out was supported by a Lotterywest grant, which is a reminder that a new shed in Kewdale is not something a charity simply decides to buy.SecondBite now works with almost 1,100 charity partners and more than 1,500 food donors nationally. Those are its own published numbers.

The obvious question: how is any of this free?

Foody Bag sells surplus food cheaply to people who'll pay a few dollars for it. SecondBite moves surplus food, free, to people who can't pay at all. Those are d<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://foodybag.com.au/posts/surplus-food-apps-australia/">ifferent jobs </a>and neither replaces the other.What struck us at Kewdale is how much of the problem is logistics rather than goodwill. There's no shortage of businesses willing to give food away. The hard part is having a truck in the right place, with the right refrigeration, at the right hour. That's true for a bakery with six loaves left and it's true at the scale SecondBite works at.

Why a surplus food app went to visit

Foodbank and OzHarvest are next, and both run differently again. One is the bulk supplier behind much of the sector and also runs branches where households shop directly. The other rescues and delivers straight to charities with no warehouse in between.Our thanks to Lyndon for the time and the tour.

Next in the series

The first of three visits to Australia's big food relief organisations, starting in a new warehouse in Kewdale

Inside SecondBite: How Australia's Food Rescue Actually Works

The Food Relief Triangle, part two

In January we <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://foodybag.com.au/posts/inside-secondbite-food-rescue/">visited SecondBite</a>, who collect surplus food and move it in bulk to the relief agencies that hand it out. In February we went to Foodbank's WA head office near Perth Airport and met Kate O'Hara, the WA CEO, and Kylea Tink, the National CEO.Everything below is what Foodbank told us at the time of that visit. Charities move quickly and figures change, so treat them as a February 2026 snapshot rather than today's numbers.

Part two of three

<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.foodbank.org.au/">Foodbank</a> is Australia's largest food relief agency, and unusually it works both directly with the people who need food and with charity partners. At the time of our visit it was providing over 60 per cent of all the food and groceries used across the Australian not-for-profit sector.It operates in every state and territory, and the shape of the operation is tailored to each community rather than copied from a template:<ul><li>In WA, six branches and 46 mobile locations around them, where people choose and purchase the products they want for their families.</li><li>In SA and the NT, what Foodbank calls Food Hubs.</li><li>In NSW, a model focused almost entirely on supplying food and groceries to the not-for-profits rather than to households.</li></ul>Across all of it, the organisation was supporting nearly 3,000 charities a year and another 3,500 schools.

The biggest, and a different shape in every state

It isn't a Coles, a Woolworths or an Aldi, and it doesn't pretend to be. What it has is enough to keep a family fed, healthy and clean.Where households shop directly, Foodbank may charge a handling fee based on weight. A 700g box of a popular breakfast cereal, or washing detergent, might be charged at $1.50 a kilo, so about $1.25. Milk and bread might be 50 cents a kilo. Fruit and vegetables are free, with a volume cap so more people can be served.The point worth understanding is what that fee is for. It doesn't pay for the food, which is donated. It covers the logistics of sourcing and distribution, keeps the service sustainable, and supports the habit of budgeting and planning that most people using it want to hold onto.A referral is usually needed where shopping direct is available. <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.foodbank.org.au/">Foodbank's own site</a> has the details, and it operates in every state as well as internationally through the Global Foodbanking Network.

What a Foodbank branch is actually like

The donor list runs from the big retailers through to hundreds of growers and manufacturers. Coles, Woolworths and Aldi are all there, alongside names like SPC Global, Simplot, McCain Foods, Nestlé and Mars.That mix is what lets Foodbank supply staples rather than only surplus. A food rescue model takes whatever happens to be spare that day. A bulk supply model can go looking for the flour, the pasta and the long-life milk that a household actually needs.

Where the food comes from

Foody Bag sells surplus cheaply to people who'll pay a few dollars for it. Foodbank gets food to people whose problem is cashflow, at a handling fee or no charge at all. <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://foodybag.com.au/posts/surplus-food-apps-australia/">Different jobs</a>, and the gap between them is the point.What stayed with us from the Perth visit was how deliberately the model bends to each state. There's no single right way to run food relief, only the version that fits the community in front of you.

What this has to do with a surplus food app

<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ozharvest.org/">OzHarvest</a> completes the trio, and runs differently again: yellow vans, no warehouse in the middle, straight from donor to charity.Our thanks to Kate and Kylea for the time.

Part two of three. A different model in every state, and what a handling fee is actually for

Inside Foodbank: Australia's Largest Food Relief Agency

The Food Relief Triangle, part three

We <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://foodybag.com.au/posts/inside-secondbite-food-rescue/">visited SecondBite</a> in January and Foodbank in February. OzHarvest completed the tour, and we spent time at their WA office with Neil Wyatt, Food Rescue Engagement Coordinator for WA, who walked us through how it comes together.The figures below are the ones OzHarvest gave us at the time of that visit, so read them as a snapshot from early 2026 rather than today's.

Part three of three

The yellow vans are the thing everyone recognises, and they turn out to be the whole model. <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ozharvest.org/">OzHarvest</a> collects quality surplus food from a large donor network, supermarkets, cafes, delis, hotels, airlines, restaurants and corporate kitchens, then delivers it direct and free to charities that feed people.There's no warehousing step in the middle. Rescue, deliver, feed. That's a genuinely different design from SecondBite, which sorts and repacks at a facility before distributing, and from Foodbank, which holds bulk stock and supplies it on.At the time of our visit the national figures were:<ul><li>Over 250 tonnes of food rescued every week.</li><li>More than 1,500 charities supported nationally.</li><li>Over 250 million meals delivered since 2004.</li></ul>

Rescue, deliver, feed, with nothing in between

OzHarvest was founded by Ronni Kahn AO in 2004, and food rescue is only part of what it does. It runs national education programs, FEAST in schools and NEST for adults, and it leads advocacy on halving Australia's food waste by 2030.That combination is worth noticing. Moving food today treats the symptom. Changing how a country thinks about food is the longer game, and running both at once is harder than running either.

Not only a logistics operation

Having now seen all three, the differences are clearer than any summary suggested before we started:<ul><li>SecondBite collects surplus, sorts and repacks it, then distributes to local relief agencies. All free.</li><li>Foodbank holds and supplies bulk food to the sector, and also runs branches and hubs where households shop directly, sometimes for a weight-based handling fee.</li><li>OzHarvest rescues and delivers straight to charities, with no warehouse in between, and runs education and advocacy alongside.</li></ul>Different models, same intent. None of them is doing the other's job, and the sector needs all three.

Three organisations, three models

Foody Bag <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://foodybag.com.au/posts/surplus-food-apps-australia/">isn't a charity</a> and doesn't pretend to be. It sells surplus food cheaply to people who'll pay a few dollars for it, which keeps food out of bins and puts money back to the shop. What these three do is get food to people who can't pay at all.Visiting all three made the boundary clearer rather than blurrier. The common thread is that almost none of this is about goodwill running short. It's about trucks, cold storage and timing.Our thanks to Lyndon, Kate, Kylea and Neil for the time and the insight.

Foody Bag Interview on Radio 6PR, Perth

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