Nourishing Communities, Changing Lives

On The House is a food rescue and redistribution organisation based in New Plymouth. It started in 2017 as a small free-food shop stocking around 85 food items sourced from local cafes. In contrast, last financial year, On The House distributed 181,720 kg of food to community groups, Food Banks and over 10,000 households through twice-weekly pop-up free stores.

"On The House has three pillars: reduce food waste, feed people who need it and build community through connection and participation. Each is equally important in our organisation," said Terry Hancock, General Manager. 

"So many resources go into producing, packaging and distributing food, and then a lot of it goes into landfill or is fed to animals when it's still fit for human consumption. It's crazy, really. 

"We've grown a lot in the last three years. But to scale up we needed funding and infrastructure. We became a registered charity and began collecting from supermarkets. We now have a food depot with a commercial chiller and freezer, an electric van and 3.5 employees." 

Toi Foundation funding is being used to keep the operation running this year.

On The House relies heavily on its volunteers to operate effectively and to build its third pillar.  

"We've got over 100 active volunteers who help set up and run our free-food stores and food depot each week. There's a lot of community there, with friendships being made and it's a really upbeat, positive environment. We're non-religious, apolitical and there is absolutely no judgement of others. Anyone and everyone can come to On The House and we treat them with kindness, compassion and respect."

You can find On The House at https://onthehouse.org.nz/