Why Oz Harvest's Ronni Kahn wants you to join the "Order of the Teaspoon" to end food insecurity and waste

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Now, the next time you're in a crowded space, at the shop, sitting in traffic, walking down the street, look around. Would it surprise you that statistically at least every third person does not have enough food to eat?

**Ronni Kahn** (1:51)
She said to me, I need you to know my husband also has a full-time job. She said, we've stopped taking milk in our coffee.
We give our kids breakfast, and when they ask us why we're not eating with them anymore, we say we'll eat later, but we don't. Now, this woman could not have worked any harder. It was 10.30, 11 o'clock at night, and she was still working. So this is in our country.

**Natasha Mitchell** (2:25)
Yes, the figures are shocking for this country, and you might know it all too well from experience. According to a Food Bank hunger report from 2025, one in three Australian households had experienced food insecurity in the previous 12 months. And grotesquely, at the same time, a third of all food produced in Australia is wasted, thrown in the bin.
So how can we address this disturbing mismatch? Well, today on Big Ideas, Ronni Kahn, the founder of leading food charity, Oz Harvest, on why the persistence of hunger in a wealthy nation is a failure of imagination and of will. Oz Harvest started back in 2004 to rescue quality surplus food and give it to people in need around the country. Now with more than two decades on the front lines of food insecurity, Ronni was invited by the National Library of Australia to deliver this year's prestigious Kenneth Myer Lecture in Canberra and Melbourne. And you'll hear a bit of both events here on Big Ideas today. Here's Ronni.

**Ronni Kahn** (3:32)
Thank you all so very, very much. I am truly honored and privileged to be here tonight. Uncle Brad touched on something and it reminded me of a wonderful indigenous saying that actually is so in alignment with everything that I believe. And it goes something like this, that if there are three eggs in the nest, one must always leave one for sustainability, for the future. And I think really tonight I'm here to share with you a little bit about what I've seen over the last 22 years, where we are as a country today, and to explore this notion of this extraordinarily wealthy country that is generous, that is abandoned, and yet I'm going to give you some stats and figures that I think will absolutely shock you, because they shock and horrify me every single day.
Twenty-two years ago, I started Oz Harvest, and it's important just to give you a little bit of the background so that we can understand where and why we are here today. And the truth is, I don't have an answer to the why, but I have many, many questions. And tonight, we will be looking and hoping. I don't expect us to come up with solutions. But if we do, I will be thrilled, because I am the very first one who will be there attempting to solve some of these problems, and I am committed to still doing exactly what I do today. So 22 years ago, I do have to admit that I stumbled into OzHarvest. So, you know, I'm often asked, why did you start OzHarvest? And the truth is, I was just a spoiled little girl, and it wasn't that from the time I was little, I decided that one day I would start a charity, or one day I'd even be, now this might sound a little wanky, that I might be a charity queen.