The Multiple and Changing Values of Rescued Food: Case Study of a Food Security Initiative in Urban New Zealand

In the attempt to address food insecurity and food waste, food rescue has been presented by advocates in high-income countries as an alternative model to conventional food banks. Although supermarkets and restaurants in industrialized nations – including New Zealand, the focus of my case study – are constantly stocked with 150–200% of surplus food over what it takes to nutritionally feed their populations (Stuart, 2012), they continue to report high rates of food insecurity, such as in New Zealand where just 60.8% of households report being fully food secure (NZMinistry of Health, 2019). To explore one approach to food security initiatives in urban areas, I conducted a nine-week ethnographic case study of Kaibosh Food Rescue, a non-profit food aid initiative in Wellington, New Zealand, which collects and redistributes ‘food waste’. By following the food through its social life and interviewing an array of stakeholders, I found that once food is declared as ‘waste’ by supermarkets, in its afterlife rescued food continues to embody multiple values. I argue that not only does this rescued food still hold much nutritional value, but it can also create social spaces, facilitate action and help empower recipients, all of which were facilitated by the presence of food that in the commercial food industry realm was declared to have no value.